Produced by Portishead co-founder Geoff Barrow, this sharp-edged if undernourished debut feature casts a critical gaze on 90s rave culture. Venal drug user David (Marc Bessant) first robs an passed-out supplier, then in another flashback tries to burgle his own family home. Before you can say, he's overturned in the wreckage of his car in a woodland – and subject to the angry eye of the Poacher (vocalist Jason Williamson). Declining to free David, with impatience toward townies, he is a fractured society embodied: “You’re one of those loud individuals from up on the heath.”
Unsteady Opening and Darkly Funny Duel
Game gets off to a shaky start, spending too long on pedantically chronicling David’s attempt to extricate himself from his seatbelt, while clumsily segueing into past scenes of his everyday life. The bigger point – that the ecstasy generation were primarily out for themselves – is clearly conveyed. But these vignettes are insufficiently developed to properly prime us for what to expect when the Poacher arrives, fuming after David kills his dog. Still, a grimly amusing standoff takes hold – David desperate to escape; the Woodsman withholding his jerrycan of scrumpy, determined to dousing him instead in resentful talk. Williamson, projecting ponderous menace in the role, is reminiscent of Michael Smiley.
Visual Flair and Music Video Sensibility
Just a single key story turn, but it results in a comically executed chaotic run on the forest trails that dips close to rural terror. Director John Minton finally gets to go all in with his showy imagery: where he was hunkered down doing impressionistic closeups of insects in the light in the opening part, he now goes all out with the full psychedelic grand display, soundtracked to a frenzied keyboard rendition of Ravel’s Boléro. Game feels more like an elongated music video than a fully fledged drama, but there’s enough strident imagery to suggest that Minton could emulate Jonathan Glazer, Garth Jennings and others into making the leap from the UK video industry.
The film releases in UK and Irish theaters from November 17.
