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| Reindeer Games (Director's Cut) | 
 enlarge | Director: John Frankenheimer
Actors: Ben Affleck, Gary Sinise, Charlize Theron, Dennis Farina, James Frain
Studio: Dimension
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.99
Buy New: $2.27
You Save: $12.72 (85%)
Buy New/Used from $1.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  (93 reviews)
Sales Rank: 12294
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Director's Cut, Dvd-video, Widescreen, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD
Running Time: 124 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.1 x 0.6
MPN: DISD22395D
UPC: 786936151565
EAN: 0786936151565
ASIN: B000059HBA
Release Date: March 27, 2001
Theatrical Release Date: February 25, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Ben Affleck in Reindeer Games November 7, 2004
5 out of 11 found this review helpful
Ben Affleck fan,gives a good performance and manages to be the hero in this film.
Affleck plays a prison inmate, Rudy Duncan who is
about to be released in 3 days with his pal NIck Cassidy (James Frain).
Nick is an ex-convict who dreams about the girl
that keeps writing him letters, who he has never met. Ashley Mercer.
Everthing seems great for Nick and Rudy,but a prison lunch room fight ends up in the killing of Nick. Rudy just barely ends up getting killed himself.
Then on the day of his release ,Rudy awaits outside along with
the other inmates for the bus that will take them away from their hell hole.
Rudy is about to board the bus when he spots a girl waiting for somebody.
Taking into consideration that Ashley,Nick's admirer doesnt know that Nick has been killed ,Rudy realizes that this girl is indeed Ashley. However, knowing that the girl is waiting for Nick, Rudy decides to take the identity of his friend.
This at first seems like a good decision that Rudy has made, he gets to spend a night with a great girl,but then trouble starts brewing in.
Ashley's so called brother,Gabriel (played well by Gary Sinise) enters and he starts to beat the hell out of Rudy, thinking that Rudy is indeed Nick.
You see Nick used to work in the gambling casinos and he was planning a big robbery which would make him rich.
Rudy at first denies he is NIck,but this just leads to more trouble, then Rudy tries to make a run for it and he is caught.
Then Rudy goes along with the fact that he is Nick
and manages to stay long enough to turn the
tables on the would be burglars.
There is alot more to Reindeer Games, at first
we are lead to belive that Ashley and Gabriel are siblings,
but later on this is not the case.
There are so many twists and turns that just
when you think it's over,it's not.
This is the latest movie by John Frankenheimer and
he shows that he can still make great movies in the
year 2000 (He has been making films for over 50 years.)
Id tell you more, but that would take all the fun
out of it.
Dont listen to the critics, they too were fooled
by the different twists of the movie.
The movie became a big box office hit and made Ben Affleck recognizable as more than a comedic, drama type actor, he has shown that he can play the hero too.
 GOOD MOVIE! QUESTION August 16, 2004
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
Hi,
I normally write reviews about some movies. I really have a question about the movie. I have the original version. In the trailer police cars exploded in the streets, a building explodes ect.... Its not in the version I have. Is it in the Directors Cut? Any information would be greatly helpful. The movie it self is good. I think Gary did a GREAT job as a villan. I would reccomend this movie to action/thriller people. I enjoyed it alot, but still cant find those explosions in the trailer. Any help is great! My email is Devilboy123@comcast.net
 Game Over August 4, 2004
3 out of 8 found this review helpful
Reindeer Games is an action movie, of this there can be no doubt.
It makes no bones about its intent, showing the audience gored and flaming men in Santa suits in the first thirty seconds of film. Obviously, with landmarks like these, its going to be a rocky trip, and, judging by the gaping hole in the jolly belly of one unfortunate Kringle, it's a journey with a not-so-happy ending.
Ben Affleck is the Rudolph in our little story, guiding the plot. The metaphor is hard to miss, as his character, a car thief just getting out on parole, is called "Rudy." Rudy's cell-mate, Nick (alaus, perhaps?), has had a five month "relationship" via the post office with a lovely girl named Ashley (played with flat-faced pluck by Charlize Theron). Once he gets out of the slammer, Nick will finally get to meet the girl in the pictures, and Ashley will finally get to see what Nick looks like.
But, alas, Nick is stabbed with a shiv before he leaves, and its up to the lonely and (I'm guessing here) sexually frustrated Rudy to approach her under the guise of his late cellmate. Ashley and Rudy hit it off and consummate their relationship. Of course, things go downhill from there.
Since the late Nick once worked in a casino, he is wanted by several thugs to lead a heist on his former place of employment. Heading off our gang of rowdy ragamuffins is Gary Sinise as the extremely unattractive head bad guy, Gabriel. Sinise plays his part with sneering extravagance; his performance is one-note, and although it's a decent note, it drags the speed of the movie down. With a body twice as big as his head (obviously he bulked up for the role) Sinise never really achieves a believably threatening level of villainry. Because his menace is only partially convincing, the movie only partially works. What is lacking is the following:
Our protagonist, Rudy, mentions a number of times that he is not Nick. He'll say he's not Nick, his life will be threatened, and then he'll say he is Nick. This sequence happens about four to five to seventeen times in the movie. Gabriel is either an idiot, or he's an idiot. Although screenwriter Kruger has given us an element of suspense by adding confusion as to how much Rudy does and doesn't know about Nick and his past, he also succeeds in aggravating the plot with the continuous frictional contrivance that is Rudy's inability to make up his mind about his identity. Because Rudy changes courses so often, Gabriel's own threats against his life are called into question, and since Rudy can't die (at least not until the end, if at all), Gabriel must pretend to believe Rudy's pleas that he IS Nick, and the audience must shift about in their seats some more.
There is no skimming here of the good ole' elements of all traditional action movies: every element is present and accounted for right down to the cheesy bad-guy-reveals-his-plot-right-before-leaving-the-hero-in-an-easily-escapabl e-death-trap scene. Don't look for unexpected twists or turns, but just for blaring guns, hallway running shots, and plenty of sex. It is a Frankenheimer film.
In a lot of ways, Reindeer Games wants to be more than it is. The craft of the filming and the clarity of the cinematography aren't weak by any means, but the movie essentially fumbles most critically where its plot is the thickest. In the end, you're left watching a movie that, while eminently entertaining on the most superficial of levels, is still just another excuse to watch guys shooting each other. Instead of a story that runs away with you, Games just seems to be toying around.
 SUPERstupid. October 12, 2003
7 out of 12 found this review helpful
This is one of the worst films of its time. I cannot believe Ben Affleck, Gary Sinise, and Charlize Theron have this stinker on their resumes.... it must be an embarrassment for all three of them. The plot is completely implausible from the word go, Affleck's character has about a billion things he could do to escape that we're supposed to believe just never cross his mind, the plot twists are NOT clever (just stupid), there are gun mistakes in the film (guy firing with Uzi, the scene cuts away from him for a second, then cuts back to him and now he has a Mac-10, crap like that), and if you actually make it all the way to the end of the film (I wish to God I hadn't), the ending is so stupid you're like "I cannot believe I suffered through this entire piece of crap for THAT." Skip it...... trust me.
Put Coal in the Director's Stockings July 16, 2003
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This movie is bad, boring, and confusing. There is one scene, near the end, where the plot is explained to us by a surprise guest. After explaining the plot the "hero" says, words to the effect, "you have to be kidding me!" I agree. What happened here? With some good stars and interesting effects, I am going to have to blame the director 1'st and the story second. For those of you not discouraged, read on.The basic plot of the movie involves a car thief who gets out of prison after a two years stint. His good friend, who is to be released the same day as him, gets stabbed in jail. So, instead of them both being released on the same day, he goes home and his friend, presumably, goes to the morgue. One problem, his friend's girlfriend, doesn't know about his death. She is waiting outside the prison for him after writing letters to him for 2 years. She has never seen him, she has only written letters to him after having gotten his name from some type of jail house support group. So the "hero" of this film, pretends to be his friend, hooks up with the girl and takes advantage of her. Sorta of. There are a few twists and turns here which are suppose to keep you interested, but they don't. Ben Afflect, who plays the "hero" is not very believable as a despicable con. He is acting and it shows. If you believed in his character, you almost wished something bad would happen to him. Well, something bad does so I guess the movie does give the audience a little bit of what it wants, but not much. The only interesting thing is the acting of Gary Sinse. I think he did a great job, as normal. I first saw him in "The Stand" portraying a hero and leader of a small community fighting an evil demon. Here he is the evil demon, only he is a human being who is psychotic. In either role, we believe in the person who he creates even if we don't believe in the universe that we find him. Unfortunately no matter how good he does in this movie, the movie is not good enough to recommend. Save your money, and time, and skip to a different film.
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