Game 6 (2006)
Wednesday, July 12th, 2006
Directed by: Michael Hoffman
Cast: Michael Keaton, Catherine O’Hara, Griffin Dunne, Bebe Neuwirth, Robert Downey Jr., Ari Graynor, Shalom Harlow, Roger Rees, Harris Yulin
Runtime: 87 min.
Rating: R
Trailer
On the day his new play is set to open, Manhattan playwright Nicky Rogan (Michael Keaton) is challenged to overcome a string of obstacles: Ironing out the details of his relationship with his soon-to-be ex-wife (Catherine O’Hara), convincing his teenage daughter that he’s not a bad father, having a quickie with his mistress, Joanna (Bebe Neuwirth) and taking care of his aging father - all the while, the infamous game six of the 1986 World Series looms large in the background. Another figure looming large over Michael Hoffman’s film: Screenwriter Don DeLillo. As a writer, DeLlilo can set the seemingly mundane and ordinary as the staging ground for a story with large thematic implications, yet with Game 6 (his first produced screenplay) DeLillo focuses so much of his time on the theme of loss of control and the fragility of outside events impacting everyday life, that the film feels overly-written, rendering it limp on the screen, and despite its relatively short running time, a real ordeal to get through. Hoffman doesn’t so much direct the film as he literally creates a context for DeLillo’s writing, even going so far as interspersing dialogue from a radio DJ spouting off philosophical traffic and weather updates, further illustrating the theme and culminating in a laughably amateurish ending involving Rogan meeting with the mysterious theatre critic, Steven Schwimmer (Robert Downey Jr.). There are flashes of surrealist conceits that hint back to producers Griffin Dunne and Amy Robinson’s efforts with Martin Scorsese’s brilliant After Hours, but where that felt natural within the context of the film, here in Game 6, it translates as hollow ramblings.
Richard X
© Cinephile Magazine, 2006
