Gamer
Directed by Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor
By Robert Bell

Amidst the assault of cocaine-fuelled, desultory images, rapid edits and naked, obese men in motorized scooters, there's an anti-capitalist message in Gamer of technology as a dehumanizing mode of herding human cattle. But mostly there is a lot of "holy shit, wouldn't it be awesome if we blew that up in slow motion and then had a couple of chicks suck on each other's boobs"?

It's all just par for the course for the Neveldine and Taylor duo, who previously brought us cinematic gems like Crank and its insane sequel, Crank: High Voltage, wherein Jason Statham needed to electrocute himself repeatedly after his heart was removed. Here, Gerard Butler takes on the Statham role, playing a death row inmate injected with Nano-bytes (yes, Nano-bytes — there's animation) that allow "gamers" to use him as an avatar in a real-life Running Man-style videogame shoot 'em up where criminals die brutally for mass entertainment.

At the centre of these kooky shenanigans is an evil mastermind billionaire played by Michael C. Hall bent on controlling the world through consumerism, while a secondary plot involves Amber Valetta playing a sex-doll avatar for a big fat guy. She bends over a lot.

Of course, using the word "plot" to describe what unfolds is being extremely liberal, as Gamer is essentially a lot of noise for boys, with a random choreographed dance sequence. It goes without saying that the film is terrible but younger men with short attention spans most likely won't care, as they are pummelled with a non-stop array of screeching sequences and jump cuts. For their benefit, specifically male anxieties, such as the likelihood that hot online women are actually grotesque gay men, float around the periphery, seemingly so viewers can shout out "awww, dude" at appropriate intervals.

And that's it, as Gamer is an unapologetic sleaze-fest with guns, breasts and corny humour to boot for the type of folks that like that sort of thing. Anyone looking for more than that should steer clear. (Maple)
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