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Reindeer Games <\/strong><\/em>(2000)<\/p>\n Director: John Frankenheimer<\/strong><\/p>\n Screenplay: Ehren Kruger<\/strong><\/p>\n Stars: Ben Affleck, Gary Sinise, Charlize Theron, James Frain, Mark Acheson, Tom Heaton, Isaac Hayes, Douglas Arthurs, Ron Jeremy, Peter MacNeill, Donal Logue, Danny Trejo, Dennis Farina, Ashton Kutcher <\/strong>and Clarence Williams III.<\/strong><\/p>\n Tagline:\u00a0 The trap is set. The game is on.<\/i><\/p>\n The Plot\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n Nick Cassidy and Rudy Duncan are prison cellmates who have become friends.\u00a0 Both are scheduled for release soon.\u00a0 Nick has been exchanging letters with a pretty young woman named Ashley. Althorugh she’s sent plenty of pictures and letters, she’s never seen Nick.\u00a0 Nick will meet her for the first time when he’s released.<\/p>\n Nick has shared each letter\/photo with Rudy as they’ve arrived.\u00a0 Rudy has secretly become infatuated with Ashley.<\/p>\n Two days before Nick and Rudy are to be released a fight breaks out in the prison cafeteria.\u00a0 A convict with a grudge against Rudy uses the confusion to try to kill him.\u00a0 Nick steps in and the convict stabs him instead.\u00a0 Nick falls to the floor dead as the guards restore order.<\/p>\n Two days pass.\u00a0 Rudy and several other convicts are escorted out of the prison gates.\u00a0 Most have family, girlfriends or significant others to meet them.\u00a0 Rudy has no one.\u00a0 He plans to get on a bus and head home.<\/p>\n Then he sees Ashley.<\/p>\n She’s beautiful.\u00a0 Even prettier than the pictures.\u00a0 Rudy heads for the bus.\u00a0 Then realizes that Ashley has never seen Nick.\u00a0 Rudy hesitates and than makes the decision.\u00a0 He’ll pretend to be Nick.<\/p>\n It works.\u00a0 Rudy and Ashley have a wonderful day together.\u00a0 Finally they head to a cabin she has rented.\u00a0 Rudy cannot believe his luck.<\/p>\n Then things go sideways.\u00a0 Ashley’s brother Gabriel shows up.\u00a0 Gabriel’s a thug without a conscience.\u00a0 The hardcases with him are nearly as bad.\u00a0 Gabriel knows Nick used to work at a small casino.\u00a0 He plans to use Nick’s knowledge of the place to rob it.<\/p>\n With no other options, Rudy admits that he’s not Nick.\u00a0 Ashley can’t believe it.\u00a0 Gabriel doesn’t believe it.\u00a0 He thinks Nick just doesn’t want to help with the robbery.\u00a0 Rudy continues to protest that he’s not Nick.<\/p>\n Gabriel raises his gun as he says, “Then you’re not worth anything to me.”\u00a0 Rudy quickly changes his tune.\u00a0 In order to survive he’s going to have to mastermind the robbery of a place he’s never been in.<\/p>\n Ho! Ho! Ho! Let the reindeer games<\/em> begin!<\/p>\n Thoughts (beware of spoilers)\u2026\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n John Frankenheimer’s original director’s cut was much more dark, sexy and violent.\u00a0 For the theatrical release over 20 minutes was trimmed.\u00a0 Frankenheimer’s cut was restored for a DVD version.<\/p>\n Reindeer Games<\/em> was director John Frankenheimer’s final feature film.<\/p>\n Vin Diesel was orginally set to play Pug, a role ultimately played by Donal Logue.\u00a0 Diesel instead went on to play Dom in The Fast and the Furious<\/em>.\u00a0 Smart move.<\/p>\n Ashton Kutcher shows up in a brief scene as a college kid.<\/p>\n There are a couple of unexpected twists that are fun.<\/p>\n Reindeer Games <\/strong><\/em>(2000) rates 3 of 5 stars.<\/p>\n Reindeer Games (2000) Director: John Frankenheimer Screenplay: Ehren Kruger Stars: Ben Affleck, Gary Sinise, Charlize Theron, James Frain, Mark Acheson,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,51,54,65,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebs","category-crime","category-movies","category-trivia","category-z-view"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40619"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40620,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40619\/revisions\/40620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stallonezone.com\/zone\/logo\/zview_c.png\")
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