Dangerous Game MPAA Rating: R Entertainment: +1 Content: -3 1/2

DANGEROUS GAME, like the successful THE PLAYER, concerns the making of a movie. This one tells in a quasi-documentary style about the trials and tribulations of director Eddie Israel (Harvey Keitel) as he makes a movie about a troubled suburban couple (Madonna and James Russo). Around the frantic making of the movie itself revolves the frantic lives of the actors and Eddie. Married Eddie starts an affair with the lead actress, who is also intimate with the lead actor. All three bring their attractions and emotional involvements to the set and the movie becomes sort of a metaphor for their deteriorating relationships in real life. The dull script and disgusting situations leave the story in a hopeless mess. These things may go on in Hollywood, but why make a movie about them?

DANGEROUS GAME gives no answers; it is only a vehicle for the dramatization of degrading situations. This is indeed an adult movie, but adults will find it curiously immature. It tries so hard to be serious and profound that it's laughable. What is not laughable, however, are the 100+ f-words and other obscenities. The sexual situations, including obscured upper female nudity, intercourse implied and a forcible rape acted out are also disturbing. For some unknown reason, the lifestyle of drugs, alcohol and sex seems to be the only one available to the characters in the film. Several times Madonna is slapped in the face and once cut across the throat in anger with a knife. Sexual references abound. In the end, materialistic and hedonistic values win out over any kind of religious or spiritual ones, a serious indication of the deterioration of a segment of today's society. Not only should DANGEROUS GAME be avoided, it probably should be destroyed.

Preview Reviewer: Greg Wilson
Distributor: MGM, 10000 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232