A Service of The Arrow           Monday March 27, 2000 8:56 PM

By: Melissa Frazier

ARROW STAFF

The movie Reindeer Games is just another typical action film. It has no real dialogue, no realistic plot, and cheesy action scenes. But… it does try to mess with your mind a little and the effort of trying to figure out the real bad guy is nearly impossible all the way to the end.

It all starts with two prison cellmates, Nick and Rudy (Ben Affleck). Nick has a girlfriend who started writing to him and is waiting for him on the outside named Ashley (Charlize Theron). With two days left until they get out, Nick gets stabbed in a caffeteria fight and dies.

When Rudy leaves the prison, he sees Amber waiting for Nick. After a fairly short little struggle with his conscience, Rudy decides pose as Nick (since Ashley’s never met Nick) and take advantage of Ashley. Since Ashley is dense, it all seems to work out. At this point, the movie seems to be okay.

Now Reindeer Games takes a stomach-wrenching turn for the worse. Ashley and "Nick" begin to share the holidays together at a hotel, until Ashley’s thug brother Gabriel (Gary Sinise) and his pals show up. Gabriel kidnaps the two and he has a plan for Rudy. Nick suposedly worked in an Indian Casino in Wiscosin. (Yup, I thought that an Indian Casino in Wisconsin was strange too.) Gabriel wants to rob the casino and being that he’s never done a robbery, he needs an insider to help him with finding the money. Oh, but wait…. Rudy wouldn’t know anything in the casino due to the fact that he’s not Nick and he’s never been there. Pretty clever, isn’t it?

So that nearly wraps up Reindeer Games with the exception of some pitiful foreshadowing and weak action scenes. It’s a shame that Ben Affleck and Gary Sinise were in this film because this movie is a few steps below their level. But since that Charlize Theron’s character of Ashley had no depth or anything, she was able to get by on her looks and not have to do any actual acting.

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