The work of Bristol sound co-founder Geoff Barrow, this sharp-edged though undernourished debut feature casts a critical gaze on 90s rave culture. Self-serving pillhead David (Marc Bessant) first robs an passed-out supplier, then in a later recollection tries to burgle his own family home. Before you can say, he's overturned in the wreckage of his car in a woodland – and subject to the wrathful eye of the Poacher (Sleaford Mods frontman Jason Williamson). Declining to free David, with no time for townies, he is a fractured society embodied: “You’re one of those loud individuals from up on the heath.”
A Shaky Start and Grimly Amusing Confrontation
The film begins uncertainly, spending too long on meticulously detailing David’s attempt to extricate himself from his safety harness, while awkwardly transitioning into past scenes of his everyday life. The central theme – that the ecstasy generation were mainly focused on number one – is firmly made. But these vignettes are too thin to properly prime us for what to expect when the Woodsman turns up, enraged after David kills his dog. Nevertheless, a grimly amusing standoff takes hold – David eager to get away; the Poacher withholding his jerrycan of cider, determined to soaking him instead in embittered discourse. Williamson, projecting ponderous menace in the role, is evocative of Michael Smiley.
Stylish Imagery and Music Video Sensibility
There is only one key story turn, but it results in a comically executed chaotic run on the forest trails that veers toward rural terror. Director John Minton finally gets to go all in with his showy imagery: where he was hunkered down doing artful shots of bugs in headlights in the opening part, he now lets rip with the full lysergic 21-gun salute, soundtracked to a wild organ version of Ravel’s Boléro. Game feels more like an elongated music video than a complete narrative, but there’s enough strident imagery to suggest that Minton could follow Jonathan Glazer, Garth Jennings et al into making the leap from the UK video industry.
Game is in British and Irish theaters from November 17.
