Reindeer Games (2000)

One of those heist movies which are really enjoyable to watch again, because the story and the acting are top notch. Ben Affleck is pressured by gangster (Gary Sinise) into robbing a casino he used to work at. Will Ben Affleck find a way out of his predicament, or will he die trying?

Juicy story, funny at moments, suspenseful and surprising at other moments. This heist movie is at least worth 7 stars, because it has got all the ingredients a good heist movie needs. I give it 8 stars though, because it has such good tongue in cheek jokes and a ravishingly hot looking Charlize Theron.

It isnt a masterpiece, but it is one of those movies that stay fresh and enjoyable over the years. Everything a heist fan wants, one can find in Reindeer Games:

1 Lots of suspense. Check.

2 Action packed scenes. Check.

3 Credible acting performances. Check.

4 An original story. Check.

5 Some funny oneliners. Check.

6 Underdog conquers bad guys. Check.

Have some fun with it!

Fmovies: *** out of ****

Reindeer Games is a semi-guilty pleasure to be sure. I don't feel it's one of those so-bad-it's-good sort of movies, but the script relies quite a bit on chance and one of the plot twists, though quite fun and unpredictable, is a bit on the implausible side. The likelihood of this situation panning itself out the way it did here isn't very high, but the film works because of John Frankenheimer's direction, the charismatic cast, and the dark humor.

Rudy Duncan (Ben Affleck), a car thief, and his cellmate and best friend Nick Cassidy (James Frain) are two days away from being released from prison. Rudy just wants to return home to his family, while Nick plans on meeting with his pen-pal girlfriend, a beautiful woman named Ashley (Charlize Theron). Unfortunately, a food fight breaks out in the prison cafeteria and Nick is killed, leaving Rudy with a dilemma. When he's released, at the last moment, he decides to pose as Nick to Ashley.

For the first few days, this is Heaven for Rudy. He and Ashley click immediately, and they make love in a motel. However, returning back to the motel from some shopping, he's ambushed and beaten by Ashley's brother, Gabriel (Gary Sinise) and his men. Having read Nick's letters and discovering he'd worked as a security guard at the Tomahawk Casino, he plans to use Rudy (whom he thinks is Nick) to help him rob the casino. Rudy has to now find a way to convince everyone he's Nick and get out of this situation alive.

From the opening scene featuring five dead Santas in the snow, Reindeer Games had me riveted. It's a fine way to open the film, giving the feeling that something disastrous has just occured, and it piqued my interest. Using the flashback method in this film is effective, which may now be considered tiresome in films overall, but it works here.

After The Island of Dr. Moreau, it looked as if though director Frankenheimer's career was almost over; then came Ronin, an action thriller that featured some exciting shootouts and one of the most brilliant car chases ever filmed. Reindeer Games still features Frankenheimer doing a first-rate job. While his direction is far from flawless (he has a pesky insistence to shoot many, many close-ups) he does an excellent job creating suspense and believable action scenes.

Reindeer Games tries to work as both action and suspense, and for the most part, it succeeds. The action is refreshingly not over-the-top in the "how do we top the next stunt" style seen in so many Jerry Bruckheimer or Joel Silver blockbuster films. Frankenheimer injects tension into the gunplay, fistfights, and chases, and these scenes work better than they probably could have in another less talented director's hands.

Ehren Kruger wrote the script, and he puts in a lot of dark humor. There are a lot of funny moments, due mostly to Affleck trying to ad-lib and convince everyone he's actually Nick. Of course, Kruger is also (in)famous for plot twists that just about nobody can predict, but are also wildly improbable. Actually, Reindeer Games' final plot twist is perhaps more likely to occur than the twists in Kruger's other scripts (Scream 3 and Arlington Road). Speaking of that twist, let me just say that you might or might not figure it out almost exactly a minute before it happens. Unlikely or not, there's no denying that last twist is a lot of fun.

Director Frankenheimer and screenwriter Kruger also seem to

I though REINDEER GAMES was a pretty good movie, especially compared to some other movies of the year 2000 so far, but I think there should have been a little more action than there actually was. There was quite a lot of buildup to the casino robbery, but when it finally got there, not much happened. The ending was very good. Just when you think you've identified all the twists, there's another one right there.

Rudy (Ben Affleck), a car-thief, and his cellmate Nick (James Frain), a guy who killed another man while defending his girlfriend, are both about to be freed from jail when Nick is murdered during a lunch fight. Rudy decides to pretend to be him when his pen-pal-like girlfriend Ashley (Charlize Theron), who never met Nick before, comes to find him. The two really hit it off and things are going well, until Ashley's brother Gabriel (Gary Sinise) finds Rudy and threatens to kill him if he doesn't help them get into and rob a casino, which the real Nick previously worked at.

The plot is actually pretty cool, but it's hard to believe that this bunch of idiot-thieves would really believe that this was the real Nick, even after he told them time after time that he wasn't. There are many great twists at the end which leads to an unpredictable, although somewhat unbelievable, ending. The characters are pretty cool, about half of which turn out to be different from whom you originally thought.

Ben Affleck, new to the action genre, did a pretty good job. After proving himself to be able to play very different parts, like in Dogma, Armageddon and now this, I think he is really going places. Charlize Theron did an OK job as well as the mysterious girlfriend of Nick. Gary Sinise stole the show. I really like this guy. Boy can he act! He's played so many different characters very well. Gary doesn't do as well as the villain as he did in SNAKE EYES or RANSOM, but he still did a very good and believable job.

The main flaw in this movie was the lack of action until the end. The casino robbery itself should've been more action-packed, like it seemed on the commercial. Even in the ending there was more irony and surprise than there was action. But the story and was action was there was still very well done. I'd recommend this movie over many of the movies out now.

Reindeer Games fmovies. John Frankenheimer follows up his great comeback film, "Ronin," with "Reindeer Games," a flawed but efficient thriller that recalls his earlier "52 Pick-Up."

Freshly paroled ex-con Rudy Duncan (Ben Affleck) assumes the identity of his cellmate, Nick (who misses out on his parole when he is taken out during a prison riot), when Rudy falls for Nick's gorgeous pen-pal, Ashley (Charlize Theron). The ruse goes awry when he is also mistaken for Nick by a gang of thugs (headed by Gary Sinise) who recruit him in their planned heist of an Indian casino at which Nick had been employed.

Like "52 Pick-Up," "Reindeer Games" has a central character whose flawed behavior puts him at the mercy of dangerous individuals who conceive a scheme that spins out of control. "52 Pick-Up" was successful because the entire cast, beginning with Roy Scheider as the trapped hero, was equal to the task of bringing the grittiness of the material to the screen. The one significant problem with "Reindeer Games" is the casting of squeaky-clean Affleck as its central character. Through no fault of his own, Affleck looks like a lightweight alongside a supporting cast that includes Sinise, Clarence Williams III, Danny Trejo, and Dennis Farina -- all actors who look like they have lived a little. Affleck cuts a profile similar to that of Scheider, but without the lived-in look that made him convincing as someone who would be able to go toe to toe with his tormentors.

"Reindeer" is helped greatly by the performance of Theron, who, while also young, always has been able to project a more adult presence like the young Kathleen Turner. Credited more for her on- and off-screen glamour, Theron often is underrated as an actress. Here she conveys equal parts sweetness, intelligence, dismay, and ferocity. Of course, she also livens up her sensual scenes. For many actresses, nudity itself is the extent of their sexuality, but Theron generates heat simply by looking comfortable and bringing an unforced quality to the proceedings.

The other major plus is Frankenheimer's direction, which turns an adequate screenplay into a solid thriller. He keeps the story moving and handles the action scenes economically, avoiding the excesses of Michael Bay, Simon West, and other directors of MTV-inspired fireball-fests. As in "Ronin," the action actually stays within the bounds of plausibility, which makes them more involving.

Reindeer Games is about an ex-con who has taken over his cell mate's identity, so he can run of with the other guy's girlfriend when he gets out of jail. Of course not everything goes as planned. Not only does he get the girl, he also gets a lot of trouble, because some other criminals wanted to use his cell mate to rob a casino. He doesn't know anything about the casino, nor about robbing one, but if he doesn't help them, they will shoot him immediately. So he helps them robbing the casino, wearing a Santa costume, because it is Christmas...

The concept is quite good, but of course not very original. In fact: the whole movie is professionally done, but not that special, so don't expect anything innovating or new. However, when you can forget that for a moment you'll have some good fun watching it. Only at the end it really failed, there were just too many explosions who aren't really doing any good to the rest of the story if you ask me.

But no problem, at least it's something different than "The Sound of Music" or "Home Alone" which you'll normally see around Christmas. It offers decent fun, without excelling once, so that's why I give this movie a 6/10.

If you love movies with a bunch of twists, this is a wonderful movie. Up until the very end you are wondering what/who is what/who... It is a suspense filled movie with some well known actors and actresses, which is why I thought I would watch it. I had never heard of the movie, but was glad I watched it. I like Gary Sinise and he does a good job with his role in this movie. I like seeing the scenery and the casino, not sure if the movie was filmed on location, but it sure looked like it was. If you like fast paced action it is a good movie. If you are looking for something high brow, you may want to pass... It is just a good movie for the sake of a good movie. And I like the ending, and never saw it coming!