Reindeer games

Year of release : 2000

Run time : 2h5m

Genre : Action / Thriller / Heist

Cast : Charlize Theron, Ben Affleck, Gary Sinise

Nick and Rudy are cell mates in the Iron Mountain Prison. Rudy for stealing cars, Nick for k1lling a guy who hit on his girlfriend, Millie.

Nick is mailing with Ashely, a girl he met through a magazine correspondence, which facilitates women meeting convicts. He always reads the letters she sends him to Rudy.

3 days before their release, they see Alamo is back, an inmate who thinks Rudy ratted him out. After 5 years inside, Rudy just wants to get home ,drink a hot chocolate and eat pecan pie.

2 days before their release, a fight ensues in the prison cafeteria, when the inmates find insects in their jelly. Alamo comes for Rudy and stabs Nick in the commotion.

Nick dies, and Rudy walks out.

While getting out of the prison, he sees Ashley waiting for him, and he walks past her, getting on the prison bus taking them to town. He changes his mind, and walks out, to meet Ashely. Pretending he is Nick.

They go to a diner, and he tells her he didn’t approach her right away in fear of her not liking him. Things go well, and they end up in the hotel room. Rudy likes her so much, he flushes his ID into the toilet (I didn’t know one could do that, that it flushes) so she won’t find out he’s not Nick.

Ashley buys him winter clothes, groceries, and asks him to go to the Indian casino Nick used to work at, to gamble, after the holidays.

When going back to their hotel room. Nick is being assaulted by a gang of men, which he finds out are Ashley’s brother and his friends.

Ashley’s brother read Nick’s letters, and knows Nick worked at the casino, so he wants him to help them r0b the place. Rudy realizes Ashley set Nick up, and that’s why she wrote to him in jail.

He tells them all he’s not Nick, he just wanted to be, to get with Ashely, but that isn’t helping him.

Ashley tells him to stop saying he’s not Nick ,as her brother k1lled people, and might k1ll him.

Rudy finally gives in, when they want to k1ll him for being no use to them. But he still doesn’t know anything about the casino, and wants to find a way to get out of this situation.

But what if there’s more than meets the eye, and nothing is as it seems?

The first time I watched this movie, 20 years ago, I loved it. Now, not so much. After the one hour marker it started to bore me. I also didn’t like SPOILER that Ashley was sleeping with all the men, conning them all.END OF SPOILER

The movie was filmed the way Brain De Palma films movies, with one character in the immediate foreground while the other is in the background, the split diopter shot, which I liked.

It seemed to have been very cold when they filmed, as their breaths were lingering in the air in long patches, but they are always dressed for warm weather, especially Charlize Theron. They even fall through the ice in one scene, I hope it was done in the studio.

The title of the movie might be coming from something Gary Sinise’s character says.

The acting was good.

Ashton Kutcher makes a cameo appearance.

The soundtrack has a lot of Christmas songs. I think it should have been released around Christmas, not in February.

The movie received negative reviews (with a 25% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 37 score on Metacritic) , and grossed a little over 32 million dollars at the box office against a budget of 42 million dollars, being a flop.

Cinema Score audiences graded it a C-.

Viewer discretion is advised, as the movie contains nudity (the s3x scenes are filmed from a weird angle).

Rating : Worth a watch !