Surviving The Game
Freemasons have for so long been the scourge of society that even in the golden years of the 80s and 90s, cinema would often feature villains who would serve as obvious fictional characters based off their kind. This winning formula would definitely lend itself to action movies, and one of the best of that kind would be this 1994 release, based upon the classic story of The Most Dangerous Game (where a European nobleman would normally be the main villain) and rewritten here as a nasty Freemason hunting soiree where the entitled superior get their jollies by luring unsuspecting homeless people onto their private hunting ground with promises of food and money before setting them loose in a kill or be killed human hunt situation (said to be a favorite pastime of The Windsor Royal Family only they in real life preferred to hunt children). After another deprived sucker falls down dead to a crossbow, the crew starts looking for their next mark, with the apparent lucky winner being a heavily dreadlocked Ice-T, a former mechanic whose grief over his wife and daughter’s recent deaths have left him homeless and apparently with some kind of a hex over him also, as shortly after his dog and his best human friend wind up dead as well, leaving him not only as a scrapper who doesn’t back down from anybody but also a Robin Hood type amongst the homeless who steals large amounts of food so that he and the other homeless people can have large banquets for themselves under the bridge, plus he carries a devil may care attitude where it really doesn’t matter to him whether he lives or dies, just as long as its not on his knees. In other words, he’ll make for the perfect Freemason prey with the first shock of the film being Charles “Roc” Dutton playing the recruiter who approaches Ice-T’s character (appropriately named Mason) to get him to be all he can be. In a masterstroke, Dutton is allowed to do his trademark uplifting speech to a young black male on how to be a better man than he is now (which he perfected on Roc), but only now it’s completely subverted, an evil man spouting bullshit rhetoric on another man who is good but yet feels he has nothing to lose so he pays attention to what the other man has to offer, a job as a “scout” on a hunting expedition with some of the greatest actors in movie history, all playing high end scumbag lowlifes who have a way to twist the system yet again so that they can enjoy a game (or rather a ritual) of unchecked, legalized murder. Dutton’s job offer turns into what T figures is a good opportunity as Dutton brings him into the fold first to meet with the presumed boss, an operative running a shell company played with an understated reptilian charm by the great Rutger Hauer, slyly welcoming T into his circle and even giving him reassurance that everything will turn out fine. He and Dutton take T to their private hunting ground (with T not even receiving any kind of formal training) where the rest of the group rolls in: a scummy Federal Reserve boss and money launderer of the operation played by Oscar Winner F. Murray Abraham; his weak, effeminate son played by Brian McNamara who was dragged along by Daddy so that he wouldn’t wind up full on gay; a shit kicking cowboy oilman with asthma (John C. McGinley) who is also the most openly racist of the bunch; and last but certainly not least, the brilliant CIA psychiatric mastermind of whom the entire hunt was his creative brainchild played with chilling charisma by Gary Busey. There is a noticeable divide between Hauer and Busey’s characters over who is actually in charge of this hunt, and their differences carried over into real life as well, with Hauer actually being concerned over one of his own co stars doing something to upstage or steal the movie away from his admittedly more cerebral performance, with Busey doing just exactly that, literally adlibbing on camera in one take one of the most mindblowing monologues of all time (Prince Henry Stout), a twisted tale of a boy being initiated by his Masonic father which applies to Busey’s character but also makes one question the utter sanity of Busey himself to even say it on camera with so many possible Freemasons watching and hearing any of their real secrets getting out. Busey’s monologue was the stuff of Best Supporting Actor Oscar level, and Hauer was plenty livid about it, knowing that more viewers would remember the film for Busey’s extended cameo villain and not for his Lead Bad Guy. Anyway, Ice-T gets to spend some quality time with this crew, not knowing that very soon guns will be put to his head and it will be time for Run Rabbit Run as he takes off scared for his life and The Freemason Hunters act like they’re on a high safari jungle adventure as even after T claims and kills his first Freemason, they still laugh and chuckle because it’s just all such great sport. When a second dead Freemason pops up, they get slightly more serious, but after T sticks a bomb down the race traitor Dutton’s Uncle Tom Special pants and blows him apart into an excruciating death scene where Dutton goes to wherever Freemasons go when they die, it is Hauer who shits his pants first, leaving the other remaining Freemasons to be butchered as he runs for his own life towards his plane and freedom, life and civilization. The portrayal of Freemasons as being natural born cowards who only feel confident while in full control of a situation is an accurate one indeed, always looking for that back door when the odds are finally evened up. Likewise, Ice-T brings the heat in the lead role here, making for a convincing hero in the early scenes as well as making his untrained (or at least the movie never straight up says if he was actual ex military) assaults seem realistic with one exception, a neck snapping of a Freemason with his bare hands that only a high level Green Beret can pull off right not to mention that it’s out of character compared to the other Freemason kills which he racks up throughout the film. But at least dead Freemasons are still the order of the day here, with these unlucky fools thinking that they can throw a private murder party on less fortunate souls only to see it blow up in their faces, victims of their own blood lust and avarice, more concerned with flaunting their untouchable lifestyle rather than helping those in need (or pretending to) in what is one of the most solid, streamlined action films of that grand decade of the 90s…
9/10