“Gamer” is a dangerous moment of cinematic corruption

Gamer’s opening title screen is ominous and stupid: “Some years from this exact moment….” Masquerading as a prophecy about the consequences of experiencing life through a virtual medium, the movie ought to strike the words “some years from,” because this piece of garbage is exactly the beast it thinks it’s warning us about.

It is the story of a culture where humans are able to control other humans via computers – first in a setting called “Society” which allows sick fantasies to be carried out, and then in a game called “Slayers” where death-row inmates are pawns in an urban battlefield. Gerard Butler is Kable, the cliched Slayer with a conscience, wrongfully imprisoned and willing to kill his way back to his family. He’s controlled by a teenaged gamer – in a master/slave relationship that is always murky – whose conceptions of reality and death are twisted by the safety of the screen that separates him from the real-life murders he is witnessing.

There is also some nonsense about about the Society/Slayer media pioneer (Michael C. Hall) who secretly wants to control everyone’s minds, a news reporter (Kyra Sedgwick) scooping that story, and an underground faction (lead by rapper and non-actor Ludacris) trying to disrupt the progress of virtual human control.

As a general concept, virtual bloodlust was already successfully tackled twenty years ago in The Running Man. But where that film found its critical tone in a balance of cynicism and tongue-in-cheek black humor, Gamer celebrates violence and brutality while pretending to condemn it. Blood splatters, heads are twisted 360 degrees, limbs are tossed around like confetti, and the filmmakers are very obviously trying to elicit shouts of “Cool!” rather than grimaces of disgust. The disregard for human life is terrifying, not because of the film’s disturbingly violent methods, but because the film itself operates with no definable moral framework.

Ten years ago, or maybe even five, a movie like Gamer would have been slapped with an NC-17 rating – if it was made at all. Today, it is casually marketed to real life gamers who are predominantly teenaged and whose moral compasses are malleable enough to be saved. Instead, they are being drawn in the wrong direction under the guise of didacticism and Gamer looks exclusively like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It is disheartening to see so many good actors tainted by their participation in this. Butler has pretty much wasted his career after 300 – a movie that actually made a good case for the value of stylized violence – but supporting actors like Alison Lohman, Keith David, and the criminally under-appreciated John Leguizamo (who could win an Oscar with the right script) both deserve and owe us better work.

I could write a dissertation about the significance of this movie (or is it really a video game on a big screen?), but suffice it to say that it is a new benchmark for cultural bankruptcy, and there isn’t enough Ritalin or Aspirin in the world to make the cinematography and editing watchable.

I hate this movie and I despise its directors for abusing their ability to reach the masses.

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