Game Movie This Is One

¶ … Game Movie

This is one of those keeps-you-on-the-edge-of-your-seat movies. The Game is a movie about the impossible and one that would challenge the skeptic. It started when the lead man, Nicholas Van Orton, played by Michael Douglas, a man who hates surprises received a rather unusual kind of gift on his 48th birthday. A gift that according to his only brother, Conrad Van Orton, played by Sean Penn, would be a profound life experience and one that would give fun in his rather boring and tedious life. It was a gift certificate for a shadowy and sinister outfit, the Consumer Recreation Services. Nicholas was intrigued and decided to give it a try. But instead of satisfying his curiosity, he found himself more confused. Things started to fall apart when "the game" started. It is a game that was quoted by a representative of Consumer Services Recreation as an experiential book-of-the-month-club. A lot of strange things started happening, he even found himself talking to his television. He started being wary and paranoid. He knew that he was being played but just can't put his fingers on it. Nicholas being a reasonable man finds this very disturbing and then it got scary. His reasoning and beliefs are being put to the test. He allowed himself to be caught up in the web of lies and manipulations.

A lot of things are going inside his head and I could feel him debating against himself. Should he believe or does he have reasons to doubt? I would like to point out several things. First, I noticed a lot of Skepticism on the lead character's personality. Skepticism refers to the idea that everything could be doubted except appearances. In the given circumstances, one would seriously question what was happening and try to find answers to these questions. Instead of readily accepting what was obvious. It is human nature to doubt things that he does not understand. It is human nature to even fear the unknown. But Nicholas being a sensible man, could not quite admit that he feels any fear. The only thing he could do was to doubt, to ask questions and to try harder to find the answers to his questions. "Skepticism so conceived is not merely the use of doubt, but is the use of doubt for a particular end: a calmness of the soul." I strongly agree to this argument, that skepticism is not merely to doubt but there is an underlying purpose to this doubt. We often try to question and find answers for our peace of mind. We always want things to be either black or white. The moment we perceive gray areas in our lives, we try to at least question even if there's no apparent answers. We find a certain peace in ourselves knowing that we are on top of certain situations, knowing that there are no gray areas in our lives. We find peace in knowing that we live in certainty.

Another thing I have noticed about Nicholas is his sense of Realism. It refers to the idea that something has real existence outside the mind. In the movie, after countless questions and doubts and there are still no reasonable answers, it came a point when you can only accept the truth as it is. Sometimes you get to the point when things get out of your hand. You get to the point when you ran out of questions and you get tired of doubts. Inevitably, you get to a time when you can only close your eyes and accept. Not defeat, but the truth. To learn to accept that certain things happen for a reason. And sometimes if you only try to look at things in the big picture, you will come to the realization that things will happen whether you want it to or not. You realize that things happen not to challenge your faith and the very things that you believe in and hold as true. These things happen to make you realize that you are just one speck of sand in the universe. That the world does not revolve on you alone. Nicholas was a man in power. He is a man who drowns in power and wealth. He was living in solitary confinement. He lives on his own in a palatial mansion, with no one but himself to share his everything with. But he did all this to himself. He lives this way because that is the way he preferred things to be. He made himself believe that he needs no one and nothing but himself. What happened to him, the cruel game that was played on him was what he exactly needed. It was a humbling experience for him. An experience he so deserved. It was after all a gift. It was certainly a well-thought-of and a well-intentioned gift. A gift given to him by the only person he has got in his life, his brother. A person whom he thought could do no good and someone he chose to shut out of his life. He did all of this for the simple reason that he prefers to be alone.

Third, I would like to mention the idea of Consequentialism, which I believe was also presented in this movie. Consequentialism states that our actions are to be morally evaluated solely by their consequences. It just goes to show that we make our own choices. We just have to be careful and smart about the choices we make in life.

The choices that Nicholas made in his life, the path he chose his life to traverse. His past actions, choices and decisions determined whatever was happening to him whether he wanted it or not. The situation he found himself in was a consequence of his past actions. What happened to him was his own doing. Therefore, it would entirely be up to him how he chooses to deal with it. He can keep chasing the answers to all of his questions or he can choose to accept the situation as it is and start thinking of a way around the problem.

Lastly, I think the lead character in the movie expressed a lot of Rationalism. Rationalism is the idea that the exercise of reason, rather than experience, authority, or spiritual revelation provides the primary basis for knowledge. This theory emphasizes the role and importance of human reason. I feel somewhat strongly with this argument. First of all, I think it is important that we question what we believe is true. In that way we don't lose in touch with reality. It is important that we know why things happen and why it happened to us. But I also believe that experience must play a great role in our lives. We live for experience and we learn from it, that's the simple reason why in opinion, experience is equally important as human reason.