Reindeer Games

December 12, 2004

Rated: R Runtime: 105 min Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Movies For Guys’ Original Review of the Theatrical Release

The first clue a movie might be bad is when a Christmas movie ends up being released the last week in February as is the case with this one. The likely scenario is that they kept screening it and seeing test audiences pan it big time and then attempting to re-edit it over and over and over again. Well, I’m here to tell you that 3 months worth of re-edits didn’t save this one.

The premise isn’t bad. Affleck plays a released convict that takes the place of his cellmate with his cellmate’s mailorder girlfriend. You see the girlfriend has never met or even seen a picture of her penpal. However, someone else is also waiting for this con to be released who doesn’t know what he looks like either. In a convoluted storyline of mistaken identities Affleck has a hot girlfriend in the form of Charlize Theron and a psychopath who wants him to help rob a casino and both of them think he’s someone else. Ben Affleck basically proves he’s not ready for this type of action role and walks thru this thing in a manner that could make us care less whether he lives or dies or even what he’s doing. In fact I wouldn’t have even had sympathy for him had he had his rump wrangled in prison. That smug pretty boy act isn’t going to win him any points with action fans.

I had some ray of hope for this movie only because it was directed by John Frankenheimer who has brought us such classics as Ronin. At the bare minimum I figured we’d get a couple of really knock out action sequences even if the story sucked. There was some action, but it was unremarkable at best. There were a couple of sequences where the models and explosions were so obviously fake that I was expecting Godzilla to show up at any time.

We gave this thing two stars, but it was by the skin of it’s teeth. I assure you we were being a bit generous. In addition to our soft spot for action, it eeks out that second star primarily on the quality of Charlize Theron’s breasts. We get a good look at them a couple of times. If nothing else, on video you can just skip to those scenes. Skip this one at the theater though unless you’re suffering from insomnia.

Posted by Billy Bob | Filed Under 2 Stars, Action, Ben Affleck, Charlize Theron, DVD, Dennis Farina, Gary Sinise, R