Dangerous Game [DVD] [1994] IMPORT

Abel Ferrara's taste for the sensational is on display in the flawed but interesting Dangerous Games, even though its subject matter is a long way from the genre material in which he has mostly specialised. The film is a psychological drama in which the Method manipulations of director Eddie (Harvey Keitel) prey on the weaknesses of coke-head actor Burns (James Russo) and insecure soap star Sarah (Madonna) to a point where reality breaks down for all three of them--and, in the film's last moments, the audience too; we are left traumatically hanging by a profound ambiguity in what we have just seen. Ferrara moves backwards and forwards between naturalistic and staged shots: we see scenes in hand-held verité and as rushes on a video. The over-wrought drama of consumerism, decadence and possible redemption that is being shot in the film is clearly intended to be directly relevant to their lives and is only marginally more melodramatic; at one point, Eddie's wife arrives unexpectedly at his hotel room moments after Sarah has left his bed. Keitel gives his usual authoritative performance as a weak man breaking under the weight of his pretensions; as Sarah, Madonna gives one of her less bad performances, attractively underplaying amid a storm of hamminess.