ErrAMaGEISOM NMQ • Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) learns the rules of The Game. In Theaters THE GAME .44 Restaurant • Open 7 Days CASUAL FAMILY DINING • BEER WINE/LIQUOR • COMPLETE CATERING MENUS • IJP TO $2.50 OFF 1 LUNCH ENTREE 8 with purchase of any entree equal or greater value One Coupon Per Table. With Coupon. Coupons May t. Not be Combined with any Other Offer. Not Valid Holidays. Dine-In Only • Expires 9/30/97 (248) UP TO $5.00 OFF 8 1 DINNER ENTREE with.4Durchase of any entree e ual or greater value (1 One Coupon Per Table. Wrth Coupon. Coupons May Not be Combined with any Other Offer. Not Valid Holidays. Dine-In Ony • Expires 9/30/97 PER PURCHA SE PRIVATE PARTY ROOM: UP TO 75 PEOPLE 476-0044 39205 SE Corner of Grand River & Haggerty • Farmington Hills All Credit Cords Accepted THE FINEST CHINESE RESTAURANT ANYWHERE! ENJOY OUR ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT LUNCHEON BUFFET MONDAY—FRI DAY 11 _ m_ to 2 p _ rrs GREAT ENTREES! ITEMS GALORE! SSZCD del- 41.011../ s CI, I I cl Ins. 1 0 8c LB rs clear PRIVATE DINING ROOM FOR YOUR NEXT AFFAIR • ALL CATERING • LUNCHES • EXOTIC DRINKS • COCKTAILS • EXOTIC DRINKS • CHOICE COCKTAILS • PRIVATE DINING ROOM • CATERING • LUNCHES THE GREAT WM.C. 35135 Grand River (Drakeshire Shopping Center) r Chio ,R S QUALITY IS OUR PRIORITY MILES 118 SOUTH WOODWARD • ROYAL OAK 9/19 JUST NORM Of 1OMILE NEXT TO ZOO 1997 114 L 544-1211 • 1 coupon per person • Dine In Only • Expires 9-25-97 • OPEN 7 DAYS SUN.-THURS. 11-10 FRI. & SAT. 11-11 476-9181 BROASTED OR BAR-B-Q CHICKEN AND WHOLE SLAB OF RIBS WHOLE SLAB OF RIBS & BROASTED OR BAR•B•Q CHICKEN FOR 2! To say I wasn't bored with The Game is about as rousing as I can get — the lack of boredom-was tightly laced with irritation. In the first movie from PolyGram films, Michael Douglas does one of his clotted, grip-jawed performances as another upscale, overachieving jerk. What is there about Douglas that so many people like to see him suffer? What is there about Douglas that he wants to? You'd think father Kirk had used up the family's quota for several generations. For 128 minutes, Douglas suffers as Nick Van Orton, a near-billionaire manipulator of money in San Francisco. He's all alone in the family mansion, apart from a gentle house- keeper (Carroll Baker). Long ago, his father killed himself by jumping off the roof as Nick watched, but that isn't enough to make Nick, who could live anywhere, wish to leave the place. His warm wife left him, maybe fearing she'd suffer terminal heat loss around Nick. Frigidly obsessed with business, he dumps a fine old publish- er (Armin Mueller-Stahl) simply to perk up the bottom line. Nick's impu- dent brother, Conrad (Sean Penn), seems to hate him, enough to lure Nick into "the game," run by the mys- terious Consumer Recreation Services. All predatory work and no predato- ry play is making Nick a dull boy. CSR can shatter his doldrums by lead- ing him into a dangerous maze of sur- prises, with no game plan and few clues. But we sense a moral imperative — that smug, constipated Nick is going to get therapeutic value for his night- mare — when a clue-dropper quotes from the Bible (John 9:25): "Whereas once I was blind, now I can see." For most of the plot he acts blind, and we can't see much further. Nick becomes a new Job, modern man of sorrows. It starts with little things, like his pen bleeding ink on his fine shirt. A waitress ruins his suit with soup. He loses his $1,000 shoe, and a house is trashed. He's nearly killed in a taxi, and his car is trashed. Then, the big comedown — the omniscient game lords fiddle with _\ his Swiss bank account (aah, those jolly gamesters of Zurich!). Deborah Kara Unger plays a key game sadist, with a snarly vocabulary. Nick is sort of excited by her, even after a blackmail scheme involving her threatens to ruin his reputation. But, so what? He seems to have no friends, nobody much cares about him. Even his stooge lawyer (Peter Donat) becomes a game pawn. Director David Fincher, who slicked up the grisly twists of Seven, does an industrially correct job of leading us into this maze. We're invit- ed to suffer with Nick, yet snicker, safe in our seats. We are nearly as con- fused as Nick, as the plot leads coyly into dark corners (often bathed in blue light), and we wonder if tiny things really matter (such as a truck labeled Cable Repair Specialists — CSR, like Consumer Recreation Services). By the time Nick is pauperized and (the supreme yuppie migraine)