It's amazing how people continue to turn out watchable remakes of "The Most Dangerous Game," but it's also easy to understand why. The idea that a pack of bored, rich psychos could make sport of killing another human being isn't just outlandishly fascinating...it's also completely believable, considering how many of these same people cavalierly dispose of other "human waste" through non-violent, but still brutal, forms of dispatch every day.
The credit for making this particular version so intensely watchable has to be given to Ice-T's laconic yet realistic portrayal of Mason, a man with really nothing to lose. And those types of men are the ones you just don't mess with.
The other half of the equation, the steadily dwindling gang of upper-crust nut-jobs, led by the always insane Rutger Hauer and his sadistic sidekick Charles Dutton, are sometimes cartoonish in their hatefulness, but this same quality makes them only that much riper for target practice.
This is a version where the hunted is obviously much quicker than the hunters, and Ernest Dickerson paces the film deliberately, allowing us to figure out just how much smarter Mason is as we follow it along.
There are times when it's a bit too cute and "Die Hard"-ish for its own good. There are also times when the editing seems choppy and haphazard, the lighting a bit too muddy. A few of the villains turn in unbelievably ham-fisted performances (F. Murry Abraham comes to mind) while others like Gary Busey deliver stone-cold readings of morbid anecdotes that will disturb you for days to come.
But for an action flick, it will keep you more than engaged for 96 odd minutes, and that may be just what you're after, after all.
The credit for making this particular version so intensely watchable has to be given to Ice-T's laconic yet realistic portrayal of Mason, a man with really nothing to lose. And those types of men are the ones you just don't mess with.
The other half of the equation, the steadily dwindling gang of upper-crust nut-jobs, led by the always insane Rutger Hauer and his sadistic sidekick Charles Dutton, are sometimes cartoonish in their hatefulness, but this same quality makes them only that much riper for target practice.
This is a version where the hunted is obviously much quicker than the hunters, and Ernest Dickerson paces the film deliberately, allowing us to figure out just how much smarter Mason is as we follow it along.
There are times when it's a bit too cute and "Die Hard"-ish for its own good. There are also times when the editing seems choppy and haphazard, the lighting a bit too muddy. A few of the villains turn in unbelievably ham-fisted performances (F. Murry Abraham comes to mind) while others like Gary Busey deliver stone-cold readings of morbid anecdotes that will disturb you for days to come.
But for an action flick, it will keep you more than engaged for 96 odd minutes, and that may be just what you're after, after all.