House of Games
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Actor: J.T. Walsh, Joe Mantegna, Lilia Skala, Lindsay Crouse, Mike NussbaumBrand: CROUSE,LINDSEY
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Unknown; Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 102 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-12-19
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of House of Games
DVD Review: Sherlock Holmes Solves The House of Games (Spoiler Alert!)
Summary: 4 Stars
I am going to describe to you the facts of this case. The entire situation in this movie takes place in the mind of the woman. It is, in effect, a dream created in her imaginary writing.
Right from the beginning, you should not accept that she is a successful psychologist. She is, in fact, a patient in a mental ward. It is important to remember that the only real person is her doctor. (The mentor) All the material about cons is a novel she is writing and living in her imagination. Each scene that begins a con, she is shown in a dark room beginning the imaginary adventure, SUDDENLY, she is there, and the adventure begins.
How do we know this? It is shown to us in the film. The characters patient files and folders upon close inspection reveal that "Mike" is a character that she has created in her writing, He is written down as "The unbeatable gambler" and "a deliverer of punishment", The trouble is she has not met him yet! Also along with the address, including the "House of games", with a brief written description of the scenes!
Notice also the gun used in the initial gambling scene in "House of Games". The gambler lays down a true combat Colt 45. After Margaret writes out the check to "C.A.S.H." for $6,000 she is unable to cope with the gun and says it is a water pistol (imaginary once again) The next shot shows a distinctly different pistol than the original combat 45 that was laid down the first time! (it has a water-gun cap on the end of it!)
Also there is the illogic of money. First she is told that her "patient" owes $25,000. Later Mike tells her he owes only $800 dollars! If she had the money she reveals later, it would be logical to pay the $800 to Mike immediately but she is conned into a situation where she is ready to hand over $6,000! Later she hands over $80,000! and still later she hands over $250,000!!! Didn't anyone find that strange? The character, William Hahn, tells her she is "rich, successful, making lots of money" NOT LIVING IN REALITY BUT IN A DREAM WORLD. (It's a clue!)
ALL of the adventures do not exist. It is all in her mind. This was at the suggestion of "The Mentor" (in reality, her doctor) in the beginning. She is "busy" and told to "relax" and start an interesting distraction. All in All, because she is really a patient in an asylum for the criminally insane, she only writes 2 pages. LOOK CAREFULLY AT THE BLACK BINDER AND READ IT.
We are also shown 2 patients. BOTH OF THEM ARE REALLY OUR MAIN CHARACTER! The imaginary situations of patient/psychologist talks, the woman in the white gown (in reality a reflection of our main character, who has murdered her father)including the "man with the gun" who you are led to believe gets her involved in a trail of gambling and con man scams. In reality it was her attempt to commit suicide after she killed her father, most likely for rape.
The image of Margaret that you see throughout the movie is how the real mental patient wishes she looked like. A "normal" person in her mind. (The opposite of her) Blond, Blue Eyed, Sexy, successful, a novelist, rich beyond the dreams of avarice, wearing clothing and a haircut that looks like she stepped out of Vogue magazine! Our only clue to reality is her constant chain smoking, which mental patients are known for, especially to keep them calm in traumatic situations! CAMEL non filters, one of the strongest on the market.
The novel is her attempt to cope with the tragic reality of her shooting her father. This comes out constantly in conversations with her "Mentor/Doctor". First at the Restaurant when she says "pressure" instead of "Pleasure". The second and most important is after the second interview with the "murderess". She finds the Doctor in the hall looking over a clipboard. Didn't anyone notice the fade out scenes of the bars/security guard (who disappears yet is in front of her) and the darkened hall? She approaches the doctor and discusses the case of the "murderess". She is taken "outside" in the more "pleasant" surroundings (I believe this is the doctor's office, where she is free to let her thoughts be expressed) and REVEALS THAT SHE MURDERED HER FATHER. To which the Doctor says she was NOT Responsible. She is not a murderess. Another freudian tongue slip!
The character "MIKE" IS IN FACT, HER FATHER in the movie. The character is trying to work out her guilt. He is rough, nasty, but willing to show her the "dirty" side of life. He constantly uses her. She is "learning" the ropes. Eventually she begins a relationship with him. She "makes love" but if you notice, you don't really see a love scene. Just two people in light banter and suddenly separated, one on a chair, the other getting dressed on the bed. The "Hotel" is not real either. Look carefully how this entire scene began, you will notice it is in her imagination again, beginning in her office.
Later he degrades her and the final shooting scene which seems so out of place makes perfect sense because that was how her father was killed, she shot him while he was hurling abuses at her and the "urge for more" on behalf of the character is not bragging, but "he asked for it" in her deranged mind. Notice the accent on the word "Whore".
ALL THE CONS SHOULD BE IGNORED Which by the way, are the oldest tricks in the books on con games that almost anyone with street savy knows by heart. That is why "Mike" says it is "Dinosaur" cons. She is incapable in her mind of plotting anything better.
Everything involving the "plots" with the cons are reflective of what happened in real life to the psychologist but are "desguised". The 3rd scene with her "mentor/doctor" outside the classroom (the doctor is giving a lecture on obsessive compulsive disorders.) She approaches her once again (the doctor having all the time in the world for her despite an obviously busy schedule) notice that the backround is not pleasant but dark and problem oriented. She is close to resolving her imagination into reality! She returns to her "office", destroys her writing (the black binder) , the TWO FILES OF THE SO CALLED PATIENTS, picks up her "successful best-seller on obsession/compulsion disorders. Which by the way, if you look closely has a picture of a gambler on it that "looks" like Mike and throws it at her imaginary degree,(once again too perfect, John Hopkins University and Harvard before that!) she picks up the phone (there is no one on the other end) and effectively CANCELS HER CAREER AS A PSYCHOLOGIST.
Yet one patient gets through, the suicidal, who now looks a lot better! He gets into a VERY DISTINCTIVE RED CADDY CONVERTIBLE!(The "stolen" vehicle, which any cop would find in 5 minutes of a reported theft.) The color RED is used again and again as "entry" and "exit" symbols from her imaginary adventures! She follows him to the "Charlies Tavern" (2 red streaks on the street leading to the bar.)How she followed him is not shown (because it is in her imagination again!) Here she hears from her Lover/Father's own lips how she was abused and plans a BIG REVENGE!
This leads to what to some was the mysterious shooting at the airport, that a lot of people found odd, but of course now makes perfect sense, because it is an imaginative coping mechanism by which our character is working out her guilt.
In the end, she is at the "Waldorf" with her doctor once again in beautiful surroundings (imaginary). She has "escaped" her situation.Her doctor says she is looking better, as if the guilt or something on her mind had eased. Once again they never eat. She follows through with the original advice of her doctor. A man comes up for her to have her book signed. She uses the very words of the doctor. "FORGIVE YOURSELF" she writes as she "signs" the book. Any real psychologist can tell you that often a lot of committed people imagine they are doing something very important and the "book" is her importance, from beginning to end.
Once again, the doctor is called away by a nurse (waitress) just at the moment they would order food in the "Waldorf". Remembering now to take a "momento" from what her father taught her, she steals an imaginary lighter from a woman at the next table, and lights a cigarette right in front of her with the "stolen" lighter.
All of the background scenery regarding the cons are "perfect" hollywood style noir film locations. This was probably due to the experience of the character, creating scenes that are "movie" locations where exciting things happen all the time.
If you doubt anything I have said here, go back and look at the film scenes I spoke about and LISTEN to what is being said. It is VERY important. The facts of the movie will bear it out.
Description of House of Games
It's the shrink vs. the shark in the ultimate mind game! Starring OscarĀ(r) nominee* Lindsay Crouse (The Insider) and Joe Montegna (The Godfather III) as an unlikely team of conartists, this "witty and devious" (Time) psychological thriller is OscarĀ(r) nominee** David Mamet's directorial debut. It's an "extraordinary" (Newsweek) and "thrilling funhouse" (New York Post) of mental gamesmanship that will keep you guessing until its exciting end! When a suicidal patient reveals that his gambling debt has him at the end of his rope, dedicated psychiatrist Margaret Ford (Crouse) enters into the shadowy underground world of gaming to help him out. At a seedy casino, she boldly confronts Mike (Montegna), the con man who holds her patient's markers. Duped into a high-stakes poker match, Margaret becomes intoxicated by Mike's mastery, as he both cheats at the game and charms her. She quickly falls for him, turning a blind eye to the fact that he's a swindler who can't be trusted. And before long she finds herself sparring in a mental poker match of the heart with deadly consequences! *1984: Supporting Actress, Places in the Heart **1982: Writing, Screenplay Based on Material From Another Medium, The Verdict; 1997: Writing, Screenplay Based on Material From Another Medium, Wag the DogBestsellers in DVD
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