The Most Dangerous Game (2022) – Review

Let me start by saying I love a good action thriller, and there have been many great adaptations of Richard Connell’s short story “The Most Dangerous Game” over the years, but this one misses the mark entirely. While this entry tries so hard to be intense and suspenseful it still somehow ends up feeling like a cheap knockoff of better movies in the genre.

The film follows the formulaic plot of its predecessors, offering little in terms of originality and even less in the area of talent in front and behind the camera. In this adaptation of the classic story, we have WWII veteran Sanger Rainsford (Chris “CT” Tamburello) travelling with his father Marcus Rainsford (Judd Nelson), who is a world-renowned big game hunter, aboard a large tramp steamer destined for some unknown local, to which it must pass by an island notorious for its dangers. But before we can commence with the action and the inevitable sinking of the ship – as they were all dumb enough to take this stupid trip – we get a scene where old man Whitney Tyler (Bruce Dern) sparks a debate with Marcus and fellow traveller Rex Allan (Randy Charach) on the fairness of hunting bears, pointing out “Do they have guns? How’s it a fair fight if he’s not armed?” Now, this debate did occur in the original short story but here it comes across more like the ramblings of a man suffering from dementia rather than anything cohesive or intelligent.

“Let’s have bears with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads!”

And why is this group on this particular hunting trip? Well, it seems that Sanger has been suffering from nightmares about his time fighting the Germans during the war and good ole pops thinks the best cure for post-traumatic stress is to hand a person a gun and send him into the jungle to hunt big game. Now, I know PTSD wasn’t recognized as a mental disorder until the 1980s but I don’t think even Sigmund Freud or Carl Jung would have suggested arming a patient and then having them go off into the woods to work it out for themselves. Needless to say, things don’t go well and that dangerous route the captain (David Nett) was worried about proved to be just that, dangerous, and before you can say “Hunting season is open” the ship is sunk and our merry band of idiots have washed ashore. Our three survivors, Sanger, Marcus and Rex, hear a rifle shot in the distance and quickly decide that it is the sound of civilization.

Call me crazy, but that doesn’t look like civilization to me.

Upon stumbling across this rather rustic chateau, the group is soon introduced to the master of this island, Baron Von Wolf (Casper Van Dien), a German aristocrat who doesn’t waste time lulling his guests into any sort of false sense of security, instead, he states outright that he’s become bored with hunting animals and now only hunts prey with courage and the ability to reason. When Rex points out that “No animal can reason” it’s up to Sanger to point out the obvious, “You hunt men.” This appalls his guests but the Baron laughs at their accusations of him being a murderer, believing these men couldn’t possibly hold “Romantic ideals about the value of human life.” He then reveals that it is well-placed sea mines that provide him with fresh game – such as the mine that took our group’s ship – and so our movie finally kicks off with the villain revealing his plans with the subtlety of a rotting fish.

“Did I mention I thought the Nazis were too soft on the Jews?”

The film then follows the standard formula of adaptions of Richard Connell’s short story, our “heroes” will be given the rules of the hunt and sent off with a three-hour head start. Sanger is introduced to two other captives of the mad Baron, a man named Quinlan (Edward Finlay) and a woman named Mary (Elissa Dowling), who have been waiting around until the Baron could find an interesting enough use for them, but now that can be paired with Sanger it will make the game much more interesting. Sadly, not much interesting happens and we the viewer have become as bored as the Baron claims to be. Not even the forest terrain or watery ravine can provide respite from this film’s tedium, only the brief appearance of Benjamin Colt (Tom Berenger), whose ship was also sunk but has managed to allude the Baron all this time, brings us anything verging on original.

“Rambo’s got nothing on me.”

Stray Observations:

• To get to their destination, the boat must pass in between a dangerous reef and the shallows of an island that strikes fear in even their brave captain, to which I must comment “You’re on a boat, if the route is that dangerous either take the three days to go around or forget the whole thing and go to Disneyland.”
• Casper Van Dien had better luck in the jungle when he starred in Tarzan and the Lost City, and this movie could have used some cheap CGI and silly witch doctors, at least then it would be laughably interesting rather than just laughably bad.
• This movie is a collection of actors who have reached new levels of slumming. Judd Nelson had already starred in the hilariously bad Shaquille O’Neal comic book movie Steel yet this movie makes that entry look Oscar-worthy by comparison.
• As is the case with most adaptations of “The Most Dangerous Game” we will get a scene revealing a macabre trophy room, sadly, all Baron Von Wolf was a trophy shelf.
• Chris “CT” Tamburello became “famous” on MTV’s reality show The Challenge, which is its own kind of dangerous game, but his thespian skills are subpar at best nor does he come across as a competent hero.

“I’ve been to worse camps. Have you ever heard of Crystal Lake?”

Directed by Justin Lee, this rendition of Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” is a pitiful attempt at revitalizing a classic tale. Despite its promising premise, this film falls flat on its face faster than its protagonists can run through the jungle. The acting – or lack thereof is quite remarkable, the cast seems to have been plucked straight from community theatre, or more accurately, they deliver performances so wooden you’d think they were auditioning for a middle school play. While some projects can be described as an “Embarrassment of Riches” this one is simply embarrassing, and even seasoned actors like Tom Berenger couldn’t salvage this train wreck of a script. I also hope you like flashbacks as they are peppered through the film like mouldy bread crumbs.

We’re not talking Saving Private Ryan here.

And speaking of the script, it’s riddled with dialogue so cringe-worthy that it veers between the laughable and the downright painful. I rolled my eyes so often I thought they might get stuck in the back of my head. But the real tragedy of this remake of The Most Dangerous Game lies in its direction as Justin Lee seems to have forgotten the basic principles of filmmaking – like how to build tension or create a sense of urgency – and the pacing is so sluggish that I nearly dozed off halfway through, and the action scenes were about as thrilling as watching paint dry. The story is supposed to kick off with a shipwreck but Lee had no budget for such things, so instead of a thrilling sequence of a ship sinking and men struggling for their lives we get Sangar sitting in his cabin and hearing muffled explosions, which triggers a PTSD flashback, and then suddenly he’s washed up on the beach.

Is this a metaphor for everyone’s career being washed up?

The cinematography by Eamon Longis while serviceable lacks much in the way of creativity, relying on tired visual tropes without adding anything new to the genre and the action sequences are poorly choreographed and lack impact, failing to generate any levels of real excitement or tension. The film’s editing is also embarrassingly bad as many scenes end by simply fading to black as if the filmmakers simply ran out of money while shooting. Then there is the lack of blood and gore. When remaking a story that has been told dozens of times and you don’t have the talent to bring much originality – not to mention talented actors or crew – the least you can do is give us some good gruesome kills. Alas, this is another area where Justin Lee fails us.

Even the villain gets a weak-ass ending.

What is disappointing is that the decision to set the movie sometime after World War Two could have worked, with Sanger a veteran of the conflict could have resulted in him becoming a more interesting threat to our villain, sadly, this was not to be the case, instead of our lead acting like a seasoned soldier he encouraged sleeping instead of pro activity and demonstrated negligible survival skills. And this is the crux of this film’s problems, there isn’t one character who is even remotely believable. The plot hinges on some pretty basic and fundamental ideas, that have been explored time and time again over the years, yet director/scriptwriter Justin Lee – and yes, he not only directed this piece of crap he wrote it as well – completely misunderstood what is required to make this type of story work. The key ingredient being that “If we don’t care about the characters, we won’t care about anything.” I do want to know who Casper Van Dien’s dialect coach was because his German accent was hilarious.

“I watched a Hogan’s Heroes marathon as preparation for this role.”

In the end, 2022’s The Most Dangerous Game is a forgettable mess of a movie that fails to live up to its potential and is nothing more than a terrible combination of non-actors paired with bored veteran actors who are simply trying to earn enough money to stave off being sent to the Actors Retirement Home. Save yourself the agony and skip this one – unless, of course, you enjoy 95 minutes of your life on cinematic mediocrity.