Gamer

Gamers who spend a lot of time playing ultraviolent video games should be insulted by their portrayal in this atrocious action flick. One player is a self-centered twit who's become famous successfully manipulating the muscular Kable (Gerard Butler), a human avatar in a live-action alternate-reality game called Slayers, in which death-row inmates are seeking a chance for parole. Another is a grotesquely obese shut-in who does nothing but eat and drool over the character—a scantily dressed babe who's actually Kable's wife, Angie (Amber Valletta)—he operates in another game. The couple are among those controlled by nano-chips inserted in their brains, with Kable on the verge of winning his freedom through survival skills that have made him (and his controller) international superstars. But power-hungry software magnate and game designer Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall) has created a brutal challenger to take him out, and a bunch of resistance fighters decide to help him. Theoretically this scenario could have been molded into a reasonably amusing, if implausible, thriller, but writer-directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor have instead constructed a script of staggering incoherence, filmed with jittery camerawork and jagged editing, which makes Gamer an insult to the eye as well as the brain. Not recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include audio commentary with filmmakers Neveldine/Taylor and costars Amber Valletta, Alison Lohman, and Terry Crews, an “Inside the Game: Controlling Gamer” making-of documentary (80 min.), a “First Person Shooter: The Evolution of Red” behind-the-scenes featurette (17 min.), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release is an “I-Con Mode” visual commentary track with behind-the-scenes footage, a “Gamer Cheat Codes” track with selectable commentaries, the BD-Live function, and a bonus digital copy of the film. Bottom line: a solid extras package for an awful film.] (F. Swietek)