New Year's Eve, 2004 at 8.30pm

Ben Affleck, Gary Sinise and Charlize Theron star in this superior thriller from one of the undisputed masters of genre, the late John Frankenheimer. Affleck plays Rudy Duncan, an about to be released from jail small-time con who has listened for years as his cellmate Nick (Brit actor James Frain) went on and on about his hot pen pal girlfriend Ashley (Theron) waiting for him on the outside.

Nick and Rudy are due to be released on the same day, but the day before, Nick is shivved in the mess hall and killed. Upon his release, Rudy sees Ashley, and taken by her hotness, finds himself pretending to be Nick - Ashley doesn't know what Nick looks like you see.

But it turns out Ashley runs with a rough crowd lead by her brother Gabriel (Sinise, in fine nasty form), and they have plans to run a heist on a casino using the knowledge "Nick" gained when he worked there.

Now Rudy is caught up in an ever-escalating series of criminal shenanigans.

Affleck has had a bad run lately, PR-wise, and he cops a lot of flack, but I for one think he's really good in this role. He does beleaguered well, and boy is his character beleaguered in this film. Theron does well as his white-trash girlfriend, and Sinise is particularly fun as a particularly sadistic character. Some cool character actors like Dennis Farina (Midnight Run), Danny Trejo (Desperado) and Clarence Williams III (Linc in the The Mod Squad) are all welcomes presences aswell.

Master director John Frankenheimer (Ronin, The Manchurian Candidate), who died in 2002 from complications following spinal surgery, does a superior job here. There is some delicious black humour in the film, which is notably brutal for mainstream Hollywood output.

Reindeer Games got a tough time from critics, but I for one think its one of the most enjoyable thrillers of recent years.

Christmas was last year but we still gets gifts 2 months past this gifts is called REINDEER GAMES this is a true gift of a film it has everything a action movie needs a good plot good stars and great bad guys and others things I won't mention. The film is about Rudy (Ben Affleck) and his cellmate Nick (James Frain) are set to get out of prison in 3 days, but the day before release, Nick gets killed Rudy takes one look at Nick's pen-pal Ashley (Charlize Theron) he'll impersonate his best jail-friend to get a little piece of Ashley what guy in the world would not want to. Rudy quickly gets drawn into a casino-robbery scheme by Ashley's evil brother Gabriel (Gary Sinise), and then the twists begin. They're a lot of twists in this movie, which make it great Ben Affleck does a great job as playing an ex con who wants to get reformed but because of a girl he can't.

Charlize Theron does a great performance she can play action rules this was a good movie for her and play an evil role but I wont get into that the director John Frankenheimer does a great job of bring the cast together and the plot was outstanding the story keep you on your feet till the end and the ending it like the sixth sense you wont believe it Gary Sinise does a great job of playing a villain if you are look for a great hold on to you seat action movie look no more here it is Reindeer Games.

3.5 Stars out of 5

Movie Review by Paul Perkins Copyright 2000

REINDEER GAMES opens with a great sick joke of a shot: a bloodied Santa lies dead in the snow, with various other dead Santas lying in the vicinity. Having thus piqued our curiosity, REINDEER GAMES flashes back six days to illustrate the genesis of the tableaux.

Our narrator Rudy (Ben Affleck) is just about to get out of jail in northern Michigan after doing five years for grand theft auto. His cellmate Nick (James Frain), in for manslaughter, is also due for release. Nick has been corresponding with gorgeous but as-yet-unmet-in-person Ashley (Charlize Theron), who's sent a lot of attractive photos of herself along with tons of love letters.

The problem is Rudy has a crush on Ashley himself. When tragedy befalls Nick just before they're due to get out, Rudy struggles with his conscience but can't resist passing himself off as his buddy when Ashley shows up at the gate, waiting to pick up her boyfriend. Hot sex occurs the instant privacy is possible. Rudy wrongly supposes that his biggest problem is how to tell Ashley he's not who she believes he is. He is disabused of this assumption when Ashley's brother Gabriel (Gary Sinise) and three cohorts show up. Gabriel wants 'Nick,' who once worked security at the Tomahawk Casino, to show him and his gang how to rob the place with his insider's knowledge. Gabriel is clearly not the type to take 'no' or even 'You've got the wrong guy' for an answer.

And this is just the start of the unexpected developments.

While the set-up in Ehren Kruger's script is clever and multi-leveled, with at least one quite surprising twist, the rest of REINDEER GAMES never measures up to the promise of its beginning. After that gruesome, surreal image, the film settles into being pretty straightforward and literal-minded, without ever fully taking advantage of the possibilities for verisimilitude on the road or in the casino.

Director John Frankenheimer makes the most of the frozen surroundings (actually Vancouver rather than Michigan, but snow-wrapped enough to keep us shivering in sympathy with the characters throughout). The slightly desaturated colors enhance REINDEER GAMES' film noir credentials, but Frankenheimer's slightly detached manner doesn't quite work with the fever-dream, sex-driven aspects of the tall tale.

REINDEER GAMES is actually constructed so that coincidence plays a much smaller role than it appears to at the outset. Anti-heroes are also perfectly acceptable within the genre, and apart from lying to get into Ashley's panties, Rudy doesn't seem to be such a bad guy. However, while there are a couple of torture sequences that appear to be designed to make us feel for the entrapped Rudy, we're never made to share his desperation. This may be because Affleck, although likable, seems by turns too bright, too snide and too stoic for a character whose fascination ought to lie in his increasing sense of panic and skin-saving invention.

Sinise gives his all to the genially violent Gabriel, and his gang are well-played (albeit in underwritten roles) by indie stalwarts Clarence Williams III, Danny Trejo and Donal Logue. Dennis Farina contributes a bit of much-needed attitude as the casino owner, who's wretched that he's stuck in a blizzard rather than the Vegas sun. Theron is beautiful, and comes across as sweet and cuddly throughout, which is an asset at times and a hindrance at others. Frain has an interesting presence and does an excellent American accent (he's English).

The stakes of the overall enterprise - a small casino robbery - are too low for us to be taken with the heist for its own sake. In trying to keep the supporting characters from being cartoonish, the filmmakers leave them relatively undefined. There's also a problem with how we seem expected to react to the general toughening-up of Rudy - we may be rooting for him, but the film never earns the reaction it's trying to elicit as he goes from harmless to vindictive.

The script wants to play with themes of identity, but everyone, Rudy included, is allowed no more personality than necessary for the plot to progress. By the end of REINDEER GAMES, we realize we've been given little to play with apart from the puzzle box itself. It's a nicely put-together puzzle, but it doesn't make for a fully satisfying film experience.

-- Abbie Bernstein

ISSUE 12.3 - 2/25/2000

During the latter part of Reindeer Games, Ben Affleck, the film's star, dons a Santa suit.

In Reindeer Games, Ben plays a convict set to be released in two days-just in time for Christmas, and he still looks very boy-next-doorish despite drab prison attire and a five o'clock shadow. Ben's character, Rudy Duncan, does sweaty push-ups as he intently listens to his cellmate, Nick (James Frain), swoon over gushy love letters from his pen pal, a knockout named Ashley (Charlize Theron).

All I kept thinking was that the two inmates were fittingly given holiday names like Rudy and Nick, when suddenly Nick is killed during a prison riot. Upon his release, Rudy pretends to be Nick so he can spend time with Ashley (What exactly Rudy was thinking when he flushed his driver's license down the toilet is anybody's guess.), and immediately the two have wild sex while Dean Martin croons Let it Snow on the soundtrack.

But in Reindeer Games, not everything is as it seems, and soon enough you'll be wondering whether or not Ashley has set-up her ex-con of a boyfriend. Just when things are getting all cozy for Rudy, Gabriel, Ashley's brother enters the picture. Gabriel (played with villainous glee by Gary Sinise) and his band of second-rate thugs want to rob a casino on an Indian reservation. Keep in mind that all the characters believe Rudy is Nick, and now he has no I.D. to prove otherwise.

So, at gunpoint, Gabriel forces Rudy to plot the robbery. Although Rudy was jailed for hot-wiring cars-and it's a good thing because his expertise comes in handy in the film's final moments-he knows enough details about this casino because Nick worked there as a security guard. With great reluctance, Rudy agrees to outline the robbery in this tale of double-crossing and second-guessing.

Directed by John Frankenheimer, a master at creating suspense (Black Sunday) and zeroing in on action sequences (French Connection II, and more recently Ronin), Reindeer Games offers little in the way of suspense or action. What Reindeer Games does have is a top-notch cast in fine form, some fun dialogue written by Ehren Kruger (Ashley to Rudy: "When I get back into that room, you better be wearing nothing but a candy cane.") and a juicy ending that should take even the most jaded viewers completely by surprise.

Copyright © by K. Charles Dwyer

By LOUIS B. HOBSON ~~ Calgary Sun

Director John Frankenheimer is a master at bending and twisting the rules of a game. The Manchurian Candidate, Seconds, 52 Pick-Up and Ronin are classics of suspense. Frankenheimer's newest foray into manipulation and seduction is a minor thriller at best, yet it still delivers some of the director's trademark thrills and surprises.

Rudy Duncan (Ben Affleck) is a small-time car thief serving the last days of his sentence. Rudy will be out for Christmas and all he wants to do is spend it with his family, vowing to one and all he'll turn his life around.

Rudy's cellmate Nick (James Frain) has been corresponding with a woman named Ashley (Charlize Theron), who has promised to meet him the day he and Rudy are released.

Fate intervenes.

The day before their release, Nick is fatally knifed by another prisoner, leaving Rudy with a major dilemma. Does he tell Ashley the truth or does he pretend to be Nick? That's possible, because Nick shared his correspondence with his buddy.

Rudy decides to pose as Nick.

Ashley is definitely as passionate as she promised Nick she would be, but she neglected to tell her pen-pal about her psychotic brother Gabriel (Gary Sinise). Gabriel and his thugs have been availing themselves of Nick and Ashley's correspondence, learning that Nick once worked at a casino.

They demand that Nick help them rob the casino on Christmas Eve. If Rudy admits he's not Nick, Gabriel will kill him. If he refuses to help them rob the casino, Gabriel will kill him. If he tries to escape, Gabriel will kill him. The audience shares in Rudy's escalating and desperate efforts to keep one step ahead of Gabriel. This means thwarted attempts at escape, deception and diversion as well as numerous further instances of mistaken identity.

Ehren Kruger's screenplay unsuccessfully tries to make Reindeer Games simultaneously funny and violent. Sinise and his henchmen are cardboard goons and therefore laughable until they casually shoot innocent bystanders. The humour also takes the edge off the suspense. It's pretty clear Rudy is not in mortal danger. He's much too charming and devil-may-care.

If the role had been toned down a few notches, Affleck could have been playing Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant in an Alfred Hitchcock thriller. Kruger's screenplay certainly pays homage to Hitchcock.

In their early scenes, Affleck and Theron sizzle -- but seduction soon gives way to manipulation and Theron doesn't make as convincing a transition as Affleck. The final third of Reindeer Games is a bloodbath, but Affleck is required to maintain his cocky, carefree demeanour.

Sinise, on the other hand, is required to keep pushing the envelope -- which he does with maniacal glee. There's no question who the certified and certifiable villain is in this thriller.

Reindeer Games is compelling while the game unfolds, but it's not the kind of thriller that lingers once its full hand is revealed.

(This film is rated AA)