Ernest R. Dickerson | Through the Shattered Lens

Since Sunday is a day of rest for a lot of people, I present #SundayShorts, a weekly mini review of a movie I’ve recently watched.

Jack Mason (Ice-T) is a homeless man who’s having a very bad day. His dog and best friend both die so he’s ready to give up on life. Just in the nick of time, a kind gentleman named Walter Cole (Charles S. Dutton), who works at the 7^th Street mission, shows up, saves his life, and tells him about a potential job opportunity, even giving Jack his partner’s business card. The job would consist of helping out a group of hunters as a survival guide. Soon, Jack is meeting with rich businessman Thomas Burns (Rutger Hauer), who tells him all about the responsibilities of the job and hires him for the position. It looks like things are finally turning Jack’s way as he finds himself on a charter flight out into the mountains, where the hunters are waiting. The night he arrives, they have a huge feast as he gets to know the guys. It’s a strange lot, but hey, he’s got food in his belly and money in his pocket, so he can put up with some odd behavior for a few days. This very short period of happiness turns out to be fool’s gold as Jack is roused from his sleep early the next morning and told to run. They’re going to be playing a game, and the rules are simple… kill or be killed!

SURVIVING THE GAME was released to theaters on April 15^th, 1994, when I was 20 years old. As one of Rutger Hauer’s biggest fans, I went to see it in the movie theater of course. As a fan of B-movies filled with action and violence, I had a good time with it. A big part of that fun came from it’s cast of interesting actors. I’d watch Hauer in any role, and I pretty much have. There’s not a lot asked of him in SURVIVING THE GAME in terms of heavy lifting, but I still enjoy watching him on screen. He looks pretty cool riding his motorcycle with his big goatee and ponytail. I just like Ice-T. There’s something I’ve always found appealing about him on screen, and the same can be said here. Charles S. Dutton is so capable of projecting good on screen. The fact that his character is working at a charity mission as a front to set up homeless men to be hunted and killed was a nice bit of casting. And finally, with other actors like Gary Busey, F. Murray Abraham and John C. McGinley playing the hunters, you just know you’re in for an over-the-top, scenery chewing good time. I also want to shout out one particularly disturbing and graphic scene that involves Charles S. Dutton and a blown up 4-wheeler. It’s the one scene from the film that I’ve remembered ever since saw it that first time at the theater.

Five Fast Facts:

SURVIVING THE GAME was released about eight months after John Woo’s HARD TARGET starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. Both films are re-tellings of THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. Woo’s higher budgeted film did much better at the box office.
It was Rutger Hauer’s idea that his character rides a motorcycle rather than a 4-wheeler, like the other hunters in the film. He felt the bike looked like an iron horse, giving him the appearance of a warrior knight!
There’s not a single female character in the film.
Near the end of the movie, there’s a shot of a cityscape with a caption on the screen that reads “Three Days Later in Seattle.” The cityscape is actually that of Philadelphia.
Prior to directing his own films, director Ernest R. Dickerson had been the cinematographer for the Spike Lee joints SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT, SCHOOL DAZE, DO THE RIGHT THING, MO’ BETTER BLUES, JUNGLE FEVER, and MALCOLM X.

Jack Mason (Ice-T) has been living on the streets of Seattle ever since the death of his wife and daughter. When Cole (Charles S. Dutton), the friendly man at the soup kitchen, tells Mason that he can get him a job, the suicidal Mason accepts. It turns out that a group of wealthy men are going on a hunting trip and they need a guide to lead them through the wilderness. Mason accepts but, upon arriving, he discovers that the men (who are played by Rutger Hauer, F. Murray Abraham, William McNamara, John C. McGinley, and, of course, Gary Busey) are actually planning on playing the most dangerous game and hunting him for the weekend.

There are definitely better versions out there of Richard Connell’s famous short story. One of the best, John Woo’s Hard Target, was released a year before Surviving the Game. Both films share the idea of rich men hunting down the homeless for fun. Surprisingly, it is Woo’s film that seems to take the idea, with all of its societal implications, more seriously. Surviving the Game may present Jack Mason as being a suicidal homeless man but there is never any doubt that he is actually Ice-T, everyone’s favorite rapper and all-around badass. But it’s precisely because Ice-T has such a recognizable persona that Surviving the Game is a guilty pleasure. There is never any doubt that Ice-T can survive the game because Ice-T is the fucking game. Matching Ice-T every step of the way is a rogue’s gallery of recognizable character actors, all of whom bring a different type of crazy to the proceedings. When a movie delivers the spectacle of Ice-T being hunted by and then hunting Gary Busey and Rutger Hauer, it is easy to forgive whatever plot holes might be present in the script.

One final note: Surviving the Game was directed by Ernest R. Dickerson. Dickerson got his start of Spike Lee’s cinematographer so it’s not surprising that Surviving the Game looks great.