‘Reindeer Games’ at 25: Why John Frankheimer’s Maligned Would-Be Christmas Cult Classic Deserved Better
On paper, the heist movie “Reindeer Games” should have been a slam-dunk. It had action master John Frankenheimer (“The Manchurian Candidate,” “The Train,” “Ronin”) at the helm, a buzzy cast of rising stars (Ben Affleck, Charlize Theron) and reliable character actors (Gary Sinise, Clarence Williams III) chewing the scenery, and a clever premise in which a crew dressed as Santa Clauses robs a casino at Christmastime.
Yet “Reindeer Games” landed with a thud 25 years ago — critics mostly hated it, and it flailed at the box office, opening at number three behind the kids’ movie “Snow Day” and the Bruce Willis vehicle “The Whole Nine Yards” before disappearing from theaters entirely just a few weeks later. Was it really that bad, or just a victim of bad timing? And was there a better film to be found in the footage Frankenheimer shot before test screenings led to months of reshoots and editing-room meddling by financiers Harvey and Bob Weinstein?
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These questions can largely be answered via Kino Lorber’s new special edition of “Reindeer Games,” which includes the theatrical release on 4K UHD for the first time along with a Blu-ray of Frankenheimer’s preferred cut. Even though the director’s version runs about 20 minutes longer than the theatrical release, the movie is essentially the same — its pleasures and drawbacks remain consistent across the two versions. Either way though, the ratio is far in favor of the pleasures — without making claims for “Reindeer Games” as some kind of overlooked masterpiece, it is a hell of a lot more fun than its reputation suggests.
The movie opens in prison, where non-violent offender Rudy (Affleck) lives vicariously through his cellmate Nick. Nick has a beautiful woman he corresponds with — she’s never met him in person and doesn’t know what he looks like, but they have plans to meet when he gets out of prison. After a fellow inmate kills Nick, Rudy decides to pose as his old buddy upon his release and gets hot and heavy with Nick’s girl (Charlize Theron). The ruse goes great until the girlfriend’s evil brother (Gary Sinise) steps in and demands that Rudy help him rob a casino — a casino the brother thinks Rudy has insider knowledge of because Nick used to work there.
From this point forward, the movie cycles through a dizzying number of twists and turns as several other characters turn out to be play-acting just as much as Rudy. Ehren Kruger’s script is, in its way, kind of genius — it doesn’t really make sense according to the way any actual human beings would really behave, but in the universe of this movie, it has its own crafty internal logic. The suspension of disbelief required to accept that all of the double-crosses would come off as planned is massive, and probably a big part of why people didn’t like this movie when it came out. But “Reindeer Games” isn’t meant to be realistic any more than “Singin’ in the Rain” is; it’s similarly abstracted and fantastical, and on those terms the clockwork precision of Kruger’s plotting is flawless.
While the characters constantly take chances that probably wouldn’t pay off in life, Kruger plays entirely fair with the audience on the terms he has established. On second viewing, every bit of subterfuge makes perfect sense, and the strength of the performances becomes more apparent when we realize that in nearly every scene, multiple characters are lying to each other and the audience. Charlize Theron once referred to “Reindeer Games” as one of the worst movies she ever made, but she’s great in it — she throws the audience off without ever cheating, playing the character honestly and with nuance from beginning to end.
The strong performances are certainly attributable in part to Frankenheimer, a noted actor’s director who was, in fact, the key draw for Theron and several of the other performers. Shooting in Panavision with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, Frankenheimer serves his actors beautifully, creating one widescreen composition after another that allows for maximum interplay in the frame. There are numerous shots that, in essence, serve as ensemble close-ups, with three or four faces responding to one another in deep focus. It allows for maximum dynamism in the presentation of the dialogue, and Frankenheimer gets extra mileage out of the performances by blocking the actors in a way that emphasizes the shifting balance of power in each scene.
Frankenheimer’s gift for deep-focus composition extends to the action sequences, which are, expectedly, brilliantly directed. His classical mastery of space should be obligatory for any Hollywood director, but anyone who’s ever lost track of where the actors are in relation to each other in a studio blockbuster knows that it isn’t. Each time Frankenheimer brings us into a new location, like the casino Sinise’s gang plans to knock over, he takes his time establishing the geography and then moves characters in and out of that geography with minimal cuts so that we’re always completely oriented to what’s happening even when the movie gets completely violent and chaotic.
Frankenheimer’s ability to use the space around his characters extends to another strength of the film, which is its deft use of Northern Michigan locations. Frankenheimer always makes sure that the dingy working-class environment is present in the frame, even in scenes where it theoretically doesn’t matter, like an early diner conversation between Affleck and Theron. As they talk, we’re always aware of the grim reality outside, and it informs everything that happens later; as Theron and other characters reveal themselves capable of heinous violence and deception, the implication is that it’s driven by a primal need to escape the oppressive environment around them.
The tension between this realism — a Frankenheimer trademark — and the more fantastical stylization of Kruger’s screenplay is probably viewed as a flaw by those who don’t like the movie, but for those of us who embrace it it’s part of its charm. The gritty surface realism gives the comic book action more kick and intensity than it would otherwise have, and allows the actors to bring a wider range of subtle gestures and expressions to their performances.
The film’s final moments bring the naturalistic and heightened elements together in a way that gives “Reindeer Games” a surprising fable-like quality (though, unfortunately, that quality is just about ruined by a goofy final close-up of a smiling Affleck that doesn’t feel entirely earned.) Unfortunately, that very balance between disparate qualities that makes “Reindeer Games” distinctive was a problem for preview audiences, who gave Frankenheimer’s initial cut low marks that sent him and the producers scrambling for the cutting room.
Frankenheimer ended up shooting some new material that he liked and making cuts in the original version that he didn’t, and the “director’s cut” on the Kino disc combines the first version he previewed with some of the reshoots but restores things he cut for the theatrical release. This version is mildly more “realistic” than the theatrical version, with longer conversations to make the behavior more convincing, and with a bit more brutality in the violence, but it won’t win over anyone who doesn’t already like the movie.
All the surgery the movie was forced to undergo didn’t really hurt it artistically, but it did have one fatal effect on the film from a business point of view. Because Frankenheimer spent so much time reshooting and recutting at the Weinsteins’ behest, “Reindeer Games” got pushed from its original Christmas release date to February — a situation that robbed it of an opening during the season in which it took place. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference, but “Reindeer Games” feels so tailor-made to be a Christmas classic that it seems impossible to think it wouldn’t have done better then than in the doldrums of February.
“Reindeer Games” is now available on 4K UHD from Kino Lorber.
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