When we meet petty thief David (Marc Bessant), his decision to rob a catatonic drug dealer at a rave has landed him trapped inside a mangled, upturned car in an isolated woodland with a bag full of drugs and rapidly dwindling options. From the outset, it’s a physically demanding role thatBessant throws himself into with gruelling believability, spending much of the film’s runtime hanging upside down, battered and hopeless. David is no hero, however, and scattered snapshots of his dubious past give us little cause to root for him.
Game may be set on the fringes of the ’90s rave scene, but it most certainly isn’t a film about having a good time in a field – quite the opposite, actually. For his startlingly assured feature debut, Bristol-based filmmaker John Minton has crafted a tale that’s entirely about the comedown – and it’s a crushing one at that.
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David’s short-lived hope of saviour comes in the form of a nameless poacher, played with quiet menace and morbid wit by Sleaford Mods frontman Jason Williamson. If you’ve ever wondered what might happen if you wound up concussed and delirious in a secluded forest, Game has a few extremely unpleasant ideas. Williamson’s performance seethes with contempt – not just for David, but for the rave culture pulsing around the film’s edges – a world his character clearly sees as a threat to his rural way of life.
When Williamson arrives on the scene, he already has a fairly reasonable axe to grind: the film’s most disturbing moment arrives with an act of brutal self-defense on David’s part, paving the way for a fractious, if bleakly amusing exchange between our two leads. Fair warning to fans of pooches: some may find it excruciatingly difficult to stomach. If that wasn’t enough to draw the poacher’s ire, David’s apparent links with rave hedonism prove to be the tipping point. Williamson’s character duly sets about chastising him with a barrage of c‑words and not-all-that-unreasonable observations about the wasteful, selfish nature of throwaway party culture. In a nutshell, he’s the last person you’d expect to take kindly to a DJ’s request to “make some noise”.
This is something of a passion project for co-writer Geoff Barrow, best known for his work with bands Portishead and BEAK. Alongside Minton, Bessant and comic book writer Rob Williams, who is also credited for the screenplay, all involved clearly have an affinity for the sound of the era. Barrow and his regular collaborator Ben Salisbury provide the film’s sparse score accompanied by thumping rave motifs, courtesy of electronic musician Jamie Paton, punctuating staccato synth blasts and moody ambience that needles the tension tighter.
When the contents of David’s bag of illicit substances come into play, Game evolves into something altogether stranger, nodding to the darker, more dangerous side of the rave scene. Shot in and around the city, the hush of Bristol’s surrounding woodland quickly becomes a canvas for lurid psychedelia. Flashbacks hum and unsettling hallucinations seep in as we veer into visual territory reminiscent of the infamous trip scenes of Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England. Your mileage may vary here depending on your tolerance for wacky visual flair, but it’s mercifully short-lived.
As those familiar with its creators’ worldview might expect, Game’s greatest strength lies in its distinct brand of humour. Its darkest beats are laced with the same kind of cynical wit that anyone au fait with Williamson’s acerbic lyrical delivery, or the world-weary observations of Barrow’s defunct Twitter feed might expect. For newcomers, it offers tight, compelling genre thrills as two disparate, quietly unlikable characters collide, with neither emerging from the wreckage unscathed. There may not be much in the way of character development, but the darkly humorous moments and collision of rave-era messiness and rural menace result in a lean, low-budget, feral thriller.