Gamer
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Neveldine/Taylor
Produced by	Tom Rosenberg Gary Lucchesi Richard Wright Skip Williamson
Written by	Neveldine & Taylor
Starring	Gerard Butler Michael C. Hall Amber Valletta Logan Lerman Terry Crews Chris Bridges Kyra Sedgwick
Music by	Robb Williamson Geoff Zanelli
Cinematography	Ekkehart Pollack
Editing by	Peter Amundson Fernando Villena
Studio	Lakeshore Entertainment
Distributed by	Lionsgate
Release date(s)	September 4, 2009 (2009-09-04)
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$50 million[1]
Box office	$40,707,998[2]

Gamer is a 2009 American science fiction action thriller film written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.^[3] The film stars Gerard Butler as a participant in an online game in which participants can control human beings as players, and Logan Lerman as the player who controls him. Gamer was released in North America on September 4, 2009 and the United Kingdom on September 16, 2009.

Plot[link]

In a near-future New York, eccentric Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall) has revolutionized the gaming industry with his invention of self-replicating nanites that replace existing brain cells and allow full control of all motor functions by a third party. The first major application of this technology is a game called Society, which allows gamers to control a real person in a pseudo community (much like current simulated worlds such as The Sims or Second Life but with far more telepresence and mind control). This generally boils down to the players engaging in all manner of debauchery, such as deliberately injuring their "characters", engaging in sex with random people, and eating disgusting things because they don't actually have to taste it. As a result, those who work as "characters" in Society are very well paid for their participation. A second game, Slayers, is a multiplayer, third-person shooter game with death-row prisoners as avatars in genuinely lethal battles. Any inmate who lives through thirty matches wins a full pardon. Simon, a seventeen-year old gamer (Logan Lerman) has control over the avatar, John "Kable" Tillman (Gerard Butler), the most recognizable face and the best soldier in Slayers due to having survived twenty-seven matches, far more than any other participant in Slayers' history, marking him as one of the harder targets.

While Castle, now fabulously wealthy from the success of the two games, is interviewed on a talk show, an activist organization called the "Humanz" hijacks the broadcast and claims that Castle will eventually use the nanite technology to control people against their will. After a stranger gives Tillman a warning in his prison cell that the game's mastermind plans to kill him, Tillman asks Simon to relinquish control over him in the thirtieth match. He uses this opportunity to escape and successfully drives out of the deathmatch arena while news outlets report that he has been officially listed as fragged.

Tillman is taken to the Humanz leader (Ludacris) who explains that the mind control technology can potentially be used without discretion on anyone, leading to the "extinction of independent thought". Tillman seeks out his wife Angie (Amber Valletta), who has been working as an avatar for a particularly heinous Society player. After a violent confrontation with security he manages to escape with her. He returns to the Humanz base where the rebels deactivate the nanite cells in Angie's brain.

Tillman reveals to the Humanz leader that he was convicted of murder when Castle used the mind control technology to force him to murder his best friend. Upon learning that Castle has adopted his daughter, Tillman infiltrates his mansion. Castle leads him to a room with a large basketball court and, after a song-and-dance number, using mind-controlled Slayer warriors as backup dancers, reveals that the nanites in his brain allow him to control others infested by the technology. To demonstrate, Castle beats Tillman savagely while restricting him from fighting back. Angie and their daughter are brought out after Castle reveals that most of the Humanz have been found and killed. Castle then allows Tillman to crawl to his family and attempts to force him to kill his own daughter, though Tillman resists. The last two members of the Humanz broadcast this confrontation and then give Simon control of Tillman. He interferes with Castle's control and allows Tillman to move towards him.

The interference and Tillman's prompting that Castle think about stabbing himself allows Tillman to shove the knife into Castle's chest. After Castle dies, Tillman convinces Castle's technicians to release them from the nanite control, as they have been "played" for too long.

The technician that does so, simply walks away, after saying "Well played, Kable". The film closes with a shot of the Tillmans road-tripping, much like Kable's first flashback about his family.

Cast[link]

• Gerard Butler as John "Kable" Tillman, the highest-ranked warrior in the game Slayers.
• Amber Valletta as Angie "Nika" Roth Tillman, Kable's wife, a controlled avatar in Society.
• Michael C. Hall as Ken Castle, creator of the games Society and Slayers.
• Logan Lerman as Simon Silverton, the 17-year-old gamer "playing" Kable.
• Kyra Sedgwick as Gina Parker Smith, a famous talk show host.
• Chris Bridges (aka Ludacris) as Brother, the spokesperson and leader of the Humanz.
• Aaron Yoo as Dude, a member of the Humanz.
• Alison Lohman as Trace, a member of the Humanz.
• Mimi Michaels as Stikkimuffin, another teenage gamer.
• Jonathan Chase as Geek Leader, the head of Castle's technical team.
• John Leguizamo as Freek, an inmate who befriends Kable.
• Terry Crews as Hackman, a psychopathic inmate sent to murder Kable. He doesn't have the nanites implanted in his brain, allowing him to move faster than anyone else in the Slayers program.
• Zoë Bell as Sandra, an inmate.
• Ramsey Moore as Gorge, the gamer "playing" Nika.
• Keith David as Agent Keith, a CIA agent.
• Johnny Whitworth as Scotch, the first person to receive a Nanex-implant.
• Milo Ventimiglia as "Rick Rape", a character in Society, described as "Moonraker, silver grill, with a latex outfit making him look like a bumblebee."^[4]
• Sam Witwer as Caseworker, the caseworker on Nika's custody case.
• Brighid Fleming as Delia, Kable's and Nika's daughter.
• Maggie Lawson as Female News Host #1
• James Roday as Male Co-Host #1

Production[link]

In May 2007, Lakeshore Entertainment re-teamed with Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the creators of Crank (2006), to produce a "high-concept futuristic thriller" called Game. Neveldine and Taylor wrote the script for Game and were slated to direct the film, while actor Gerard Butler was cast into the lead role.^[5]

Production took place in Albuquerque, New Mexico for a 53-day shoot. Filming was at the Albuquerque Studios and on location around Albuquerque. Multistory sets were built on parking lots in downtown Albuquerque to depict buildings that were blown up in the film, and other sets were built on the back lots near the studios.^[6] The crew used special hand-held Red One digital cameras, which allowed the special effects team to begin work normally done in post-production after each day's shooting.^[7]

In March 2009, the film's working title was changed from Game to Citizen Game.^[8][9] In May 2009, another name change was announced, the new name being Gamer.^[10][11][12]

Reception[link]

Critical reception has been primarily negative. The film holds a 29% "Rotten" rating from 72 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes; the critical consensus being "with all of the hyperkinetic action and none of the flair of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor's earlier work, Gamer has little replay value.^[13]

Critic Joe Neumaier of The New York Daily News, agreed, calling it a "Xerox of a Xerox" and citing a number of films it supposedly takes elements from, including The Matrix and Rollerball.^[14] RVA Magazine noted that Gamer's plot was overly similar to The Condemned and commented that Gamer "hates its primary audience" and "tries to criticize the commercialization of violence, even though it itself is commercialized violence".^[15]

On the other hand, cultural critic Steven Shaviro authored a 10,000 word defense and analysis of the film that he posted online, and eventually re-worked into the penultimate chapter of his book, Post-Cinematic Affect (Zer0 Books, 2010).^[16] Shaviro's essay ends with a parenthetical note that observes that:

most serious film critics ... tend to prefer 'small, modest, humane, novelistic movies' that go against the entertainment and publicity tide; or else, they cling to 'contemplative cinema,' the long-take, long-shot, sparse-dialogue style that has become a staple of the international festival-and-art-house circuit.^[16]... I think that there also needs to be a space for critics and theorists to come to terms with films like Gamer, that are fast, cheap, out of control, and knowingly exploitative. Such films are, in their own cheerfully perverse way, in touch with the urgencies of the moment, and with the social Real, in a way that contemplative cinema and modest, humanist cinema are not. These films have their own aesthetic merits, which should not be overlooked out of cine-nostalgia.^[16]

Shaviro's essay also extensively cites one of the few positive responses to the film, the four-star review^[17] written by critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky for The Auteurs' Notebook. Vishnevetsky refers to the film as "proof" of Neveldine & Taylor's "impatient genius, which is really indistinguishable from idiocy."^[17]

Box office[link]

Gamer was not a box office success. It opened with just $3.3 million and ranked fourth at the box office. In total, the film earned $9,156,057 in its opening weekend. Overall, the film grossed $20,534,907 in the United States and Canadian box office with a worldwide cumulative of $39,383,813.^[2]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Gamer at Rotten Tomatoes
• Gamer at the Internet Movie Database
• Gamer at AllRovi
• Gamer at Metacritic