Reindeer Games (2000)

After assuming his dead cellmate's identity to get with the other man's girlfriend, an ex-con finds himself a reluctant participant in a casino heist.

Director:

John Frankenheimer

Writer:

Ehren Kruger

Stars:

Ben Affleck, Gary Sinise, Charlize Theron

3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Ben Affleck	...	Rudy Duncan
James Frain	...	Nick Cassidy
Dana Stubblefield	...	The Alamo
Mark Acheson	...	Mean Guard
Tom Heaton	...	Ugly Staffer
Isaac Hayes	...	Zook
Michael Sunczyk	...	Distant Inmate #1
Douglas Arthurs	...	Distant Inmate #2 (as Douglas H. Arthurs)
Dean Wray	...	Guard #1
Ron Sauvé	...	Guard #2 (as Ron Sauve)
Ron Jeremy	...	Prisoner #1 (as Ron Hyatt)
Hrothgar Mathews	...	Exit Guard
Charlize Theron	...	Ashley
Clarence Williams III	...	Merlin
Donal Logue	...	Pug

Storyline

After being imprisoned for six years on a grand theft auto charge, Rudy Duncan (Ben Affleck) is days away from release as is his cellmate Nick (James Frain) who is is serving a two year sentence on a separate charge. Nick has a number of pictures from a romantic correspondence with a woman named Ashley he has never met but is waiting for his release. Rudy is looking forward to returning to his family and having a fresh cup of hot chocolate. Nick is killed defending Rudy during a prison riot. When Rudy Is released the next day from prison he recognizes Ashley waiting outside the prison for Nick and Rudy takes his place and pretends to be Nick. Nick had spoken of his previous employment in security with an Indian casino and Rudy finds himself involved with Ashley's criminal gun runner brother Gabriel (Gary Sinise). Rudy is violently coerced to cooperate with a Christmas Eve casino robbery scheme that Gabriel and his gang have been planning with Nick's casino knowledge as the key. Things...

---

Plot Keywords:

female frontal nudity | no panties | female rear nudity | female nudity | breasts | 

---

Taglines:

The trap is set. The game is on.

---

Genres:

Action | Adventure | Crime | Drama | Thriller

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong violence, language and sexuality

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

25 February 2000 (USA)

Also Known As:

Deception

Filming Locations:

Lion's Gate Studios, North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$42,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$8,128,356, 27 February 2000, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$23,360,779, 18 June 2000

Company Credits

Production Co:

Dimension Films,Marty Katz Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

104 min 124 min (director's cut)

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Ashton Kutcher makes a cameo as the man with whom Rudy (Ben Affleck) switches clothes, in the bathroom.

---

Goofs

Rudy is given a bottle of rum before the robbery. The bottle says it's Bacardi Light rum, which is clear, but the liquid in the bottle is brown, the color of dark rum.

---

Quotes

[first lines]
Rudy Duncan: [Rudy narrating] To tell ya the truth, I never was much for the holidays. It's been forever since I'd known a holiday, since I'd seen my family, since I'd been with a girl, since I'd driven a car. You see, cars are what put me here - Iron Mountain, Maximum Security Prison. I was riding a hard five for grand theft auto. Meanwhile, most of my esteemed raping and murdering colleagues were up for parole in three. The world works like that sometimes. All the time, in my experience. ...
[...]

---

Alternate Versions

The director's cut features around 20 minutes of extra and re-edited footage. Included are new and extended scenes between Rudy and Ashley discussing their situation when kidnapped by Gabriel. Also included is an extended and more graphic version of the scene where Gabriel throws darts as Rudy, also a scene where he heals his wounds from the darts is included as well as an extended love scene. Other changes include the omission of "Love Rollercoaster" from the casino scene, which is replaced by a longer version with a much more suspense twist to it. Finally, another scene is extended where Gabriel shoots the ice around a fisherman sending him into the freezing lake to die as opposed to the original version which merely hinted at his killing the man.

---

Connections

References The Lone Ranger (1938)

---

Soundtracks

Little Drummer Boy
Written by Katherine K. Davis, Henry Onorati and Harry Simeone
Performed by Veronika Sorrow (as Sorrow)
Published by EMI Mills Music, Inc. (ASCAP)
Courtesy of Projekt Records

User Reviews

Would've been better with just a touch of more action

I though REINDEER GAMES was a pretty good movie, especially compared to some other movies of the year 2000 so far, but I think there should have been a little more action than there actually was. There was quite a lot of buildup to the casino robbery, but when it finally got there, not much happened. The ending was very good. Just when you think you've identified all the twists, there's another one right there.

Rudy (Ben Affleck), a car-thief, and his cellmate Nick (James Frain), a guy who killed another man while defending his girlfriend, are both about to be freed from jail when Nick is murdered during a lunch fight. Rudy decides to pretend to be him when his pen-pal-like girlfriend Ashley (Charlize Theron), who never met Nick before, comes to find him. The two really hit it off and things are going well, until Ashley's brother Gabriel (Gary Sinise) finds Rudy and threatens to kill him if he doesn't help them get into and rob a casino, which the real Nick previously worked at.

The plot is actually pretty cool, but it's hard to believe that this bunch of idiot-thieves would really believe that this was the real Nick, even after he told them time after time that he wasn't. There are many great twists at the end which leads to an unpredictable, although somewhat unbelievable, ending. The characters are pretty cool, about half of which turn out to be different from whom you originally thought.

Ben Affleck, new to the action genre, did a pretty good job. After proving himself to be able to play very different parts, like in Dogma, Armageddon and now this, I think he is really going places. Charlize Theron did an OK job as well as the mysterious girlfriend of Nick. Gary Sinise stole the show. I really like this guy. Boy can he act! He's played so many different characters very well. Gary doesn't do as well as the villain as he did in SNAKE EYES or RANSOM, but he still did a very good and believable job.

The main flaw in this movie was the lack of action until the end. The casino robbery itself should've been more action-packed, like it seemed on the commercial. Even in the ending there was more irony and surprise than there was action. But the story and was action was there was still very well done. I'd recommend this movie over many of the movies out now.