Surviving the Game

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Surviving The Game
Surviving the Game DVD cover
Directed by	Ernest R. Dickerson
Produced by	Fred C. Caruso
Written by	Eric Bernt
Starring	Ice-T Rutger Hauer Gary Busey
Music by	Stewart Copeland
Cinematography	Bojan Bazelli
Editing by	Samuel D. Pollard
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	April 15, 1994
Running time	96 min
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$7,400,000 (estimated)
Gross revenue	$7,690,013 (USA) (sub-total)
IMDb profile

Surviving The Game is a 1994 action film directed by Ernest R. Dickerson, starring Ice-T, Rutger Hauer and Gary Busey. It is loosely based on the short story The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell.

[edit] Plot details

Jack Mason (Ice-T) is a homeless man from Seattle who loses his only friends - a fellow homeless man and his dog - on the same day. Dejected, he's about to take his own life when a soup kitchen worker, Walter Cole (Charles S. Dutton), saves him and refers him to businessman Thomas Burns (Rutger Hauer). Burns offers him a job as a hunting guide after Mason is able to prove his fitness by running on a treadmill for thirty minutes. He is promised a payment of $500 a week, starting early the next morning. Mason is uncomfortable over the whole prospect of hunting animals, but the offer of money proves too tempting to turn down.

Flying to a remote cabin in the Pacific Northwest surrounded by hundreds of acres of woods, Mason meets the rest of the hunting party, all of whom paid $25,000 for the privilege of being there. The party includes Doc Hawkins (Gary Busey), the founder of the hunt, a psychotic psychiatrist who specializes in evaluating the sanities of CIA agents. Hawkins's mental instability is shown^{[citation needed]} in a powerful (and typically Busey^{[citation needed]}) monologue in which he tells the story of his "birthmark". This revolves around a childhood incident in which he was forced by his father into mortal combat with the family dog, which Doc had raised from a puppy. Doc had immediately loved the dog dearly upon receiving it as a gift (stating, in classic Busey fashion, "I-was-so-excited"), and the murder of his dog scarred him emotionally (although in his twisted mind state he interpreted the event as an altogether healthy entry into manhood). The other hunters include Cole (who picks the "game" for the hunt), a bereaved embittered lawyer named John Griffin (John C. McGinley)-whose daughter was raped and murdered by a destitute-, Derek Wolfe Sr. (F. Murray Abraham), a wealthy man from Wall Street, and his son, Derek Wolfe Jr. (William McNamara), who is at first ignorant of the true purposes of the hunt. After a hearty meal of roast pig (which was brought in alive, and Jack was made to see being butchered) and $450 bottles of wine, Mason goes to sleep thinking that he'd better get some rest for the next day's hunt.

That morning he is awakened by Cole in combat gear, pointing a gun in his face. He is then told that: "We like to play a game. The hunt begins now. We are the hunters and you are the hunted." If he makes it to civilization he goes free. The hunters then give Mason time to escape on foot for as long as it takes them to eat a nice leisurely breakfast. After an initial hesitation, Burns threatens to shoot Mason if he does not try to run away, and Mason bolts for the woods unarmed. The others eventually pursue him on All-terrain vehicles, armed with a complete arsenal of semi-automatic weapons.

Mason eventually doubles back to the original cabin to deceive the hunters (which surprises them, particularly an impressed Cole, because no one else had ever done that before), where he finds a shelf of glass jars in a back room, each of them filled with the head of a previously hunted homeless man, showing how long the game has been going on (one of them is seen in the pre-opening being hunted down and impaled with a crossbow bolt). He douses the rooms in gasoline and sets the cabin alight just as the others arrive. He manages to kill Doc Hawkins (who had strayed from the pack and was lurking in the cabin) with his bare hands by throwing him through a window straight into the blazing room of the burning cabin. Even though he still has no weapons, none of the pursuers now have any more ammunition and Mason finds a way back out to the woods to plan his next move.

Mason then plants lit cigarettes in the trees to split up the hunting party and lead them to search on foot. With the hunters isolated he jumps from a cliff face and lands onto John Griffin, knocking him senseless (the others continue to congratulate Cole on their worthy opponent). He drags him into a cave, ties him up and overnight the men bond, as John reveals that his loss has meant that he no longer cares about his life anymore, only the hunt which might one day bring him a chance to face his daughter's killer. Mason reveals the story about the death of his family in a fire in an apartment building which he managed. In the morning, lawyer John Griffin is awakened by the others, and Mason is nowhere to be found. As they head back to the bikes, the now-repentant Griffin is murdered by Cole, who shoots him between the eyes with a .357 Magnum. Burns and Cole then laugh about how no-one can return without finishing the job. Derek objects to the murder so Burns punches him in the gut. Mason then makes a run for it and tries to escape on one of their bikes. Cole tries to pursue him on a four-wheeler, but when he starts the engine the vehicle explodes. Mason, an experienced mechanic, had put the wire from the starter motor into the fuel tank. Cole is alive but is badly burned and his legs have been blown off, so Burns places his two fingers deep into his neck, collapsing Cole's windpipe (Cole allowing him to do so). In the next scene, Derek dies after falling from a tree suspended over a gorge (after being pelted with rocks by Mason), provoking a slow-motion and dramatized "Nooo!!!" from his father, Wolfe Sr.

This leaves Wolfe Sr. and Burns of the hunting party. As day breaks, Mason kills Wolfe with his bare hands after Wolfe empties an entire clip from his Beretta and fails to hit anything (Mason does this by bashing Wolfe's head against a cliff wall). Mason hears the sound of a jet engine starting, and makes a run for the runway. Burns is waiting there to ambush him and shoots the plane that he had planted on the runway and it explodes. Burns takes off in another airplane and flies away, leaving Mason alone amongst the plane's debris. Three days later, back in the city, Burns has dyed his hair and arranged a fake passport and plans to leave the country. Melinda Wolfe, wife and mother of the Wolfe hunters, leaves a message on the answering machine about how she hasn't heard from them and is beginning to worry. Burns leaves without contacting her, encountering a homeless woman whom he berates. He gets to his car, a 4WD Cherokee, but it doesn't start. He is then spooked by noises in the night, and so retrieves a gun from a suitcase. He gets to his motorbike when Mason confronts him in an alley. A fight ensues and Mason overpowers Burns and takes his weapon. Burns drops to his knees, and begs Mason for mercy. Mason then walks away and leaves behind the rifle, which Burns picks up, loads and aims at Mason - however, Mason, anticipating this action, had clogged the front of the barrel (with, amongst other things, cigarettes). As Burns pulls the trigger it backfires, killing Burns (as Mason remembers the advice his late friend gave him ... always check a gun's barrel).