SLAY RIDE
Reindeer Games: crime thriller. Starring Ben Affleck, Charlize Theron, Gary Sinise, Dennis Farina, Donal Logue, James Frain, Clarence Williams III, Isaac Hayes, and Dana Stubblefield. Cinematography by Alan Caso. Written by Ehren Kruger. Directed by John Frankenheimer. Rated R. Now playing at Bay Area Theaters.
POSTHOC RATING:
** (Fair)
The latest thriller from John Frankenheimer, via Arlington Road scribe Ehren Kruger, is a routine heist picture that ratchets up some suspense, but in the end collapses under the weight of its own convoluted and overly-contrived plotting.
Ben
Affleck, charmingly plays Rudy, a car thief doing time at Michigan’s Iron
Mountain State Penitentiary (British Columbia does the stand-in location
work). Thanks to his attentive memory, when Rudy’s finally released from
prison he has a beautiful redhead named Ashley (Charlize Theron) waiting
for him. What he doesn’t know is that she has a half-crazy brother named
Gabriel (Gary Sinise), who’s hatched a plot to rob an Indian Casino on
Christmas Eve. Gabriel hopes to pull this off with his own gang of ne-er
do wells, plus alleged insider information about the casino that they
believe Rudy has.
Like all thrillers, Reindeer Games illustrates Murphy’s Law in action: there’s no such a thing as foolproof scheme, in part because the schemers themselves, especially criminals, are fools. It’s fascinating and funny to watch the criminal class constantly trip over their greed and lack of impulse control. Crime films can be seen as exercises to build audience self-esteem, because none of would ever act that stupid. Or at least we think we do.
But while Reindeer Games makes for absorbing fun for awhile, in the end Kruger’s script tries too hard to be too clever. Like many failed thrillers it mistakes complicated plotting for sophistication and cleverness, forgetting that it’s really the characters, their situations and circumstances that get a viewer’s heart pounding. After all, we don’t go to the movies for the plot itself, so much as for how and the why of the characters’ actions. A successful example of this is Carl Franklin’s One False Move from some years back. There, the plot lines were clear, simple and required little explanation, so you could focus on the characters and that, as Hitchcock so well knew, is where the heart of true suspense lies. (Hitch also ruthlessly skewered overblown plot mechanics in North By Northwest.). And despite it’s own problems, another backwoods thriller, A Simple Plan, avoided the same pitfall.
Complex plotting may be required for novels, because that form can take the time to weave both character and plot mechanics together. But when plot takes center stage in a movie, which only has a couple of hours to work its magic, both character and suspense are sacrificed. In Reindeer Games we’re treated thrice to the risible cliché of the chatty bad guy who explains everything to the hero instead of whacking him straight off, like a real bad guy would. We don’t gasp in amazement. We giggle. If it’s meant as a joke, the punchline falls flat.
Using the idea of thieves dressing up as Santas is funny to think about, but director John Frankenheimer’s approach to the material is too brutally realistic. In last year’s hit Ronin, he clearly was having a great time and managed to convey that to the audience in that zippy International thriller. But here both he and Kruger have cooked up a plot and an approach that turns into a weary tangle.
Ben Affleck is fun as Rudy Duncan. He manages to use Rudy’s essential sweetness as weapon of survival. Other performances are also excellent through it all, especially Gary Sinise as the ferociously mad Gabriel. Unfortunately too often, Sinise, along with the lovely but deceptive Charlize Theron and James Frain, is burdened with plotty dialogue. As often happens in other and better recent Frankenheimer thrillers like 52-Pick Up and Ronin, the gang is rounded out with some excellent villains, including Clarence Williams III, Isaac Hayes, Donal Logue and Danny Trejo (an actor I’ve never seen before and has a great Face from Hell).
Best of all is Dennis Farina as Jack Bangs, the Casino boss, a Las Vegas transplant, pathetically trying to bring some glitter to the backwoods of Michigan but sadly realizing that people don’t even come to his place to cheat.
Also worth a compliment is Alan Caso’s cinematography, which portrays the bleak wintry landscape the characters rush through in a way that makes you understand why some people are so driven by greed. If I lived poor in that world, I’d be tempted to a career in crime myself.
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