Another guest review from Lindsay. – Al

Gamer

Writers/Directors: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor

Starring: Gerard Butler, Michael C. Hall

Year: 2009

I think Gerard Butler may be the greatest actor of all time. If there is another guy out there who can retain credible action status after starting with Dracula 2000 and moving through rom-com dross like P.S. I Love You and The Ugly Truth then we may be closer to creating a perfect race of atomic supermen than I thought.

None of that has any bearing on Gamer. I just think he’s awesome.

Gamer essentially finishes what was started with 2005’s Doom and the First Person Shooter sequence that was the three-minute highlight of that film. The plot is as follows: In the future, a mysterious millionaire (Michael C. Hall) has blended reality TV and computer games, creating an impossible to fully grasp scenario where real death row inmates are controlled by other humans sitting at their computers in order to film a graphically violent show in which the players slaughter one another; inmates volunteer for the chance to be set free; one such tough guy gets fed up and wants to escape. That’s it.

The skinny is that this is a film that repeatedly smacks you in the face with awesomeness… for about half an hour. Then it throws a bunch of boobies in your face and finishes up by kicking you in the balls. The action’s seriously great – you feel every gut shot, hear the bullets whizzing past your head and are out of breath every time you reach the end of a fight. And on top of that the social ideas are pretty intriguing as well – what would happen if you could farm your own body out to be controlled in a simulation game? But the action doesn’t remain consistent, the story falters shortly after the set-up and as mentioned before, the finale is a total cluster… well, it’s not polite to speak ill of crap. Some good performances all round do make this watchable though.

How to enjoy it

Prelude this flick with an hour or so of Call of Duty 4, with a free-flowing supply of your favourite ale and then pass out just before the last three minutes.

Rating – 2 out of 5 (Disappointing)