MOST DANGEROUS GAME (2020) – Fancy watching an action packed movie in bits of 10 minutes episodes?
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Most Dangerous Game is a TV series with a differnce. Each of its 15 episodes lasts for barely 10 minutes! The strategy seem to address the seemingly growing trend of people having short attention span or people who are too busy to sit down for longer than 10 minutes at a time to watch TV. In order for this sort of programming to work, the story needs to be fast moving and offer enough motivation for the viewer to tune in for the next 10 minutes. Personally, I find such a format ridiculous and extremely disruptive to the flow of the narration. Fortunately with the series long concluded, we are now able to binge watch all the episodes in one sitting which, to me, is the recommended way to watch this.
Most Dangerous Game is really a decent feature length thriller that has been chopped up and served as 15 episodes. Its premise of a young man dying of a terminal illness agreeing to participate in a deadly human hunt where he is the prey, offers the perfect stage for a fast moving adrenaline fueled thriller. The rules of the hunt being that no guns are allowed, and that our prey gets more and more money deposited to his account the longer he survives within 24 hours. He is not expected to survive but of course our hero will prove otherwise. Casting the dashing Liam Hemsworth in the lead is a good casting choice. He may not have the muscles and magnetism as his brother, Chris, but he has enough of a physical presence and charm to pull this off without making it all seem too cheesy. The action flows so fast that we do not really have time to pause and question the logic of some of the action and plotline. It does almost seem like we have a cliff hanger every 10 minutes! Just sit back and be drawn in to the chase right up to the inevitable confrontation between our hero and his tormentor (played by Christopher Waltz with a cool and suave demeanuour). This is directed by Phil Abraham whose work includes TV’s Ozark, Jack Ryan and Daredevil. So he seems very comfortable dealing with action movies. Look forwad to seeing more elaborate projects from him in the future.
I liked Most Dangerous despite its obvious strategy of providing a storyline that is manipulative in drawing the audience to its action. It feels a bit old fashioned, a bit familiar. But in a good way.