Gamer (2009)

In a future mind-controlling game, death row convicts are forced to battle in a 'doom'-type environment. Convict Kable, controlled by Simon, a skilled teenage gamer, must survive 30 sessions in order to be set free. Or won't he?

Directors:

Mark Neveldine (as Neveldine) , Brian Taylor (as Taylor)

Writers:

Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor

Stars:

Gerard Butler, Michael C. Hall, Ludacris

1 win.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Gerard Butler	...	Kable
Amber Valletta	...	Angie
Michael C. Hall	...	Ken Castle
Kyra Sedgwick	...	Gina Parker Smith
Logan Lerman	...	Simon
Alison Lohman	...	Trace
Terry Crews	...	Hackman
Ramsey Moore	...	Gorge
Ludacris	...	Humanz Brother (as Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges)
Aaron Yoo	...	Humanz Dude
Jonathan Chase	...	Geek Leader
Dan Callahan	...	Backup Geek
Brighid Fleming	...	Delia
Johnny Whitworth	...	Scotch
Keith Jardine	...	Mean Slayer

Storyline

Set in a future-world where humans can control other humans in mass-scale, multi-player online gaming environments, a star player from a game called "Slayers" looks to regain his independence while taking down the game's mastermind.

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Plot Keywords:

game | convict | death | battle | online gaming | 

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Taglines:

Who's playing you?

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Genres:

Action | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Certificate:

18A

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [Spain] Official site [France]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

4 September 2009 (Canada)

Also Known As:

Citizen Game

Filming Locations:

Albuquerque Studios - 5650 University Boulevard SE, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$50,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£641,568 (UK) (18 September 2009)

Gross:

$20,488,579 (USA) (2 October 2009)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Lionsgate, Lakeshore Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

95 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The opening montage of time-lapse shots and other scenes of the world where we see ads for Kable and/or graffiti of Ken Castle overlaid on buildings or walls are mostly taken from Ron Fricke's wordless film Baraka (1992), for example, the shots of the Giza Pyramids, India, homeless man sleeping under a bridge among others.

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Goofs

In the scene where it reads "Kables Last Stand" on three separate buildings, the furthest left building has the original banner reflection of the middle building in place of the word "Last", including an NBC logo at the bottom.

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Quotes

Ken Castle: [seeing Hackman] Look at it. The new face of Slayers. Pure, crystalized horror. Two stories high and bathed in bloody red. He is what they want.
Geek Leader: They love Kable.
Ken Castle: They do now, but when they watch their hero die right in front of their eyeballs so sharp and vivid it feels like you could reach out and touch the wet flesh, they're going to change their point of view. They'll be seduced by the power of violence; the dominance. It's human nature.
Geek Leader: Kable's made it through 28 battles. Every player in the...
[...]

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Connections

Features Asteroids (1979)

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Soundtracks

The Bad Touch
Written by Jimmy Pop (as James M. Franks)
Performed by Bloodhound Gang (as The Bloodhound Gang)
Courtesy of Republic/Geffen Records
Under license from Universal Music Enterprises

User Reviews

an abstract view of how users interact with their avatars

The movie was fairly good. Even though slayers should have been more defined, it did explain the basics of it (make it to the save point alive). The movie being "abstract" worked very well for everything besides the slayers sequences, but those were surprisingly short. Something that I thought they did very well though is showing how the user interacts with their character. In MMO's today, you have a-holes who will screw up other people's fun and during one of the society scenes, there is an example of this with the roller blading. Its made even more powerful by people laughing at other people 's injuries, disgracing of dead bodies, etc. because its the icons (avatars) getting abused, not the users.

From an academic standpoint, this movie is great since it shows off how sick and uncaring people can be when its not their bodies being abused or shot at.

Anyways, if you want to see this movie, I warn you that there it is rated R for good reasons. It made me think that they should separate the R-rating into R1 and R2 or R and RR. This is because many R movies are lite-R's (some swearing, some nudity, some blood, but nothing out-of-control so to speak) and many other R movies are heavy-R's (i.e. saw, many cheesy horror flicks, and this movie)