Ben Affleck plays Rudy Duncan, a small-time car thief just about to get out of the slammer, when his cellmate Nick Cassidy, also scheduled for release on the same day, takes a shiv in the gut in a cafeteria riot. Nick was about to get out and finally meet Ashley, the woman with whom he's corresponded and fallen in love and Rudy, who's heard all of Nick's letters, seen all of Ashley's pictures, and is secretly in love with Ashley as well, realizes that he can pose as Nick with nobody the wiser.
And so, upon release, Rudy becomes Nick and gets together with Ashley and it looks like they'll be off to start their new life when suddenly Gabriel, Ashley's brother, shows up. Gabriel's read Nick's letters, see, and knows that Nick has worked security in a nearby Indian casino. And Gabriel and his gang have some not-so-nice plans for the casino that they expect Nick to help with. At least if he wants to stay alive...
See? Good ol' classic noir, the sort of thing it's easy to imagine Bogart making back in the late '40s. And, arguably, part of the problem with Reindeer Games is that instead of Bogart we get Ben Affleck. I say arguably because, I have to admit, I like Affleck and there are a lot of other things to blame. Nonetheless, Affleck seems a bit callow in the role and kinda unlikeable and somehow unable to pull off the kind of passion and awe for Ashley that would make his character work. He kinda drops the ball in other words. Not much better off is Gary Sinise, just about Malkoviching to death his role as brother Gabriel. Sinise sneers, squints and spits every line he has in a way that probably worked great for True West on the New York stage back in the late '80s but doesn't work quite as well in front of the camera. But really the larger problem is a script that, because it has a certain cleverness in the way it keeps turning the screws, made the filmmakers think that they could make it be something it really wasn't. So even when Reindeer Games works, it doesn't really feel like it works.
Surprisingly,
the MVP here is Charlize Theron (who I also thought was the best actor
in Devil's Advocate). Theron not only hits all the marks for each
of the twists the script has set out for her, she also makes it seem completely
natural. And I would say that even if she hadn't performed topless.
Really. I hope she's able to pull an Ashley Judd and get the attention
she deserves (and hopefully one day they'll both get the respect).
Are there reasons to watch the movie apart from Theron's ability to convincingly deliver a line and show her ta-tas? Maybe for film students; if you're interested in seeing a good example of a "generically unique" script, Reindeer Games is perfect, at least purely from a craft angle. But Reindeer Games the film is also a good example of what happens when that script gets in the hands of producers who love it enough to pin their greedy hopes on it. Other than that, Reindeer Games is probably not worth your valuable time.