Surviving the Game isn't a good movie, but it is a surprisingly timely one. Here's why.
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If there's anything I miss about the 80s and 90s movie scene is that they just went for it sometimes. We're gonna take a random idea, make a giant action flick out of it, and if it sticks great, if not, we'll come up with another one. Science and logic be damned. Let's try to get butts in seats. For instance, I don't see how we get anything close to the same level of absurd spectacle as Con Air, a big-budget concept-based R-rated action movie today. Admittedly I'm not sure a human body could ingest the amount of cocaine required to take that idea and run with it again, so maybe some change over time is good. I bring all of that up, because today's movie Surviving the Game, is the exact kind of mid-budget R-rated schlock I miss.
The Setup
Ice-T plays Jack Mason, a homeless man living in Seattle who's offered a unique opportunity. Join up with these rich fellas in the woods and be their hunting guide for the weekend. But the seemingly charitable offer is actually something far more nefarious. Because Mason's rich benefactors don't need Mason to help them hunt...they're here to hunt him.
Surviving the Game isn't a good movie. It's cheesy even for its era, the acting choices are wild across the board, and it doesn't have a definitive or signature action beat.
The main thing this movie has going for it is the location. The 90s were a great time for survivalist thrillers in the woods, which is almost always a good idea. Because the environment presents a lot of natural challenges including high places to fall from, bodies of water that might be incredible hard to navigate, and a wide range of terrain and obstacles to keep things interesting visually.
So instead of a standard cat and mouse kind of shootout, we can splinter some trees before sending our hero down a mountainside before falling into a lake or river. This is also a deeply ironic coat of paint to put on the "hunting humans" activity, since you're more or less hunting in the same kind of location hunters do.
But there are a lot of 90s movies that used these locations and this survivalist angle ranging from the Homeward Bound remake to The Edge with Alec Baldwin and Anthony Hopkins.
So why is this movie worth talking about? Because I think it has some great ideas under the surface.
As you probably guessed, Surviving the Game is very loosely based on The Most Dangerous Game, the famous short story about a rich man who decides the only "sport" worthy of hunting is another human being.
Now the original story is meant as a semi-ironic twist since our lead character is a big-game hunter who finds himself becoming the big-game, but also every interpretation is meant to highlight the damaged thinking that wealthy and a persistent pursuit of thrills can invoke. Aka it's very easy to justify murder if you give your victim a "sporting" chance. Hell this is the basis of the famous Spider-Man villain Kraven the Hunter.
But in our current climate, this interpretation, where allegedly charitable rich men pay for the privilege to kill another human being, all but one of whom are white men trying to kill a black man they just met, hits way harder than it has any right to. Here's a few reasons why.
The Ritual Removal of Empathy
Something I find fascinating and oddly prescient is how the movie imagines this hunt. As I alluded to before, a lot of interpretations portray the game as a fun activity or a way for these rich people to challenge themselves in a world that has bent to their will otherwise. Get down to the literal man vs man fighting each other in the mud to prove your mettle and feel alive.
And while that's certainly still there, Surviving the Game adds another layer: a ritualistic purge of empathy.
An idea that is perfectly exemplified by an infamous monologue from Gary Busey. While this movie hasn't really stayed in the public consciousness, this intense monologue from Busey, has popped up from time to time in movie based quick video channels like Reels or TikTok.
Without reciting the entire monologue while impersonating Busey, the monologue is a story about Busey's character bonding with and training a dog as a child, and then being forced to fight off and kill said dog by his father. To which his father says "welcome to manhood" and he dubs the scar on his face a "birthmark."
Which is absolutely horrifying in context, because even then the audience knows Busey aims to kill Ice-T's Mason, but also doubly so when you think about the lesson he took away from this horrific ordeal. Instead of identifying it as trauma, he viewed it as a character-builder. As a requirement to be a "man."
This also provides a nice preview and parallel for another character, a young man attending this event with his father who had no idea what this trip entailed. Instead of seeing his son's point of view, that killing a man who didn't even know what he was signing up for, is morally reprehensible, he argues that this is the only way for his son to become a man, and purge his weak impulses.
And this notion that empathy is actually weakness that should be purged from young men has seen a resurgence in recent memory with figures like Elon Musk calling it empathy...evil. And even this 90s schlock fest understands that that's bullshit well enough to kill off everyone who spouts off this toxic bullshit in as undignified and unceremoniously as humanly possible.
The parallels don't end there either.
The parallels don't end there either.
Class Warfare
Another reason this movie hits above its weight class for a modern viewer are its equally unsubtle class politics.
There's the straightforward aspect of a bunch of rich people paying to hunt a fellow human being, who is also a homeless black man who seemingly has nothing to live for.
But I also think how Mason is brought into this game is more layered and damning that you might expect. Before he's brought to the woods, Mason is at an absolute low. His dog was killed in traffic, he's been roughed up and his best friend passed away unexpectedly. And he's having a trouble finding enough to live.
So when a man arrives saying that he doesn't want him to throw his life away, a man who's currently working at a soup kitchen, who is also a fellow black man who offers him more money than he's probably come across in the last five years for a weekend's worth of work...who could say no? Or ask questions about what the job entails?
But that insidious in, via charitable face that looks more like Mason than not, is exactly how a lot of the worst monsters in our hyper-capitalist society operate. They try to mimic you. Look like you. Tell you there's so much to offer. And then offer you up as a literal sacrifice for their amusement, money or as a means of tackling their insecurities.
Admittedly some of this is clunky as hell. Like I know Mason isn't supposed to be well-traveled or versed in how rich people live, but he would absolutely understand that these rich folks aren't drinking a bottle wine that costs less than five dollars. There's also moments where T may as well be talking to the camera talking about how life is "when you're poor."
Still, it's hard for me to get too upset, because the movie also reinforces the idea that not only does Mason's life have value, beyond being a target for these men, but that Mason is capable of great things (as he outsmarts and outfights this whole group who have every advantage against him) and only pushes back when his life is literally at stake. He even spares men multiple times, demonstrating that their fear-mongered version of him is wildly off base.
Not that it stops the rich men from claiming their vengeance is justified, but we're not taking their calls for vengeance seriously when they'll kill their own just as quickly as they would a stranger.
Conclusion
From start to finish this movie is an indictment of the wealthy and their exploitative and horrifying impulses which means in spite of its limitations, it'll still stick with me.
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