Review of Gamer (2009) by Chads. — 05 Sep 2009

Jack Earle Haley and Tatum O'Neal in Donald Ritchie's "The Bad News Bears", Ralph Macchio and Elizabeth Shue in John G. Avildsen's "The Karate Kid": What do these two on-screen couples have in common? They both played air hockey.

With the possible exception of skeeball, an air hockey table is about as antithetical to the sex-drenched and violent-riddled simulated-reality entertainments that one could possibly get. The Humanz play air hockey(and first generation coin-operated arcade video games); the Humanz are a non-violent guerrilla organization, a peace movement whose objective is to topple over the multi-media empire run by Ken Castle(Michael C.

Hall). Trace(Allison Lohman), a prison guard turned liaison, brings Kable(Gerard Butler), a flesh and blood avatar, into the lair, into her tribe, who are, in essence, a bunch of twenty-first century hippies.

"Gamer" refashions the eighties into the late-sixties through its cultural artifacts in the context of its hyper-violent successors. Coin-operated games such as Defender and Galaga look like pacifist objects compared to Society and Slayers.

It's the difference between pot and black tar heroin. Ludacris is fine as the group's leader, but the filmmaker should have put some aging makeup on the rapper for the sake of gravitas, and make Humanz Brother somebody who actually played these comparatively non-violent games during its heyday; somebody who wouldn't treat these eighties relics as kitsch.

The filmmaker doesn't take full advantage of this generational, and yes, ideological setting. By bringing Simon(Logan Lerman) into its fold, Humanz could have utilized the air hockey table as a deprogramming tool.

During his first communique with Kable, the avatar reminds his desensitized controller that he's playing with a human life. The movie in my head has the gamer squaring off against Kable with a paddle.