Surviving the Game

Wealthy hunters pursue homeless vet for homicidal fun. Sound familiar? You betcha. It wasn’t too many months ago that Jean Claude Van Damme proved to be a Hard Target. Now, in Surviving the Game, it’s Ice-T who’s making tracks through the Northwest forest as the prey of bored rich men. Surviving the Game has the same story as Hard Target, and a slightly better cast, but it lacks any real pop or fizz.

Our story begins on a damp day in Seattle. We first meet Ice-T as he’s hunting through trash cans for breakfast. He’s so far down on his luck that he finds the front grill of an oncoming Mack truck mighty tempting. But he’s pulled from the threshold of death’s door by a job offer from an odd, but friendly, businessman (Charles S. Dutton). Dutton explains that he and his partner (Rutger Hauer) need a guide for a hunting trip. Ice-T doesn’t know anything about hunting, but he can’t say no to the big money Hauer shoves at him.

Okay. This is when things get silly. Granted, it’s plausible that Ice-T doesn’t get the point when he’s flown into the woods along with the pig that the hunters are having for dinner. It’s even possible that he’s still kinda dense when Gary Busey (yes, Busey and Hauer together as baddies in the same flick!) shows up and starts chatting about the male need for violence. But having been so clueless for so long, it’s simply not believable when Ice-T finally catches on and acquires the savvy to fight back.

Surviving the Game is directed by Ernest Dickerson, who previously made Juice and is still best known for being Spike Lee’s cinematographer. He has a good eye for striking images – the movie’s scenery is truly impressive – but not much else. Even the social statements in this movie are so muddled that it makes Hard Target look like Das Kapital.