If consuming an inordinate number of films has taught us anything at all it’s that a group of people should never venture into the woods without telling anyone. Bad things happen in the woods. It’s where the mutants, in-breds, cannibals and psycho killers set up shop, lying in wait for their victims to cluelessly trickle out of the ant factories and into their snares like lambs being invisibly lured to their slaughter.
In Cosimo Alema’s new film, War Games (2011), a group of seven paint-ballers take flight for a day trip hoping to stir up a little competitive spirit. A lazy first round takes place without event though the majority of the group is already bored and tending to drift away to chat or take a toilet break. And that is a very bad thing because lurking in the near distance is a trio of nasty men with dodgy European accents and shady military past ready to take their own sporting adventures to another level.
Sick of killing and skinning dogs, which they hang like exotic prizes in varying states of decay in a nearby shack, these guys decide they require human fodder to get their kicks. They plant a few land mines here and there, abduct the first of the group to stray and wait for them to unravel. Or they could make the first strike and rain a hail of bullets upon them, killing one and striking terror into the hearts of the bystanders.
Scant regard is paid to depth of characterisation in War Games, though that’s par for the course with a genre film of this type. Conveniently, one of the group produces a gun once a clear and present danger is ascertained, and from here the clichés kick in there’s the tough chick, the control freak, the one who turns to insupportable jelly in the face of mortality, and the unpredictable weirdo who may prove to be either the unlikely hero or the cause of all their demises.
Alema’s film can be enjoyed on a certain level though it certainly never hits any creative or visceral heights. The cat and mouse games between pursuers and the pursued produces the occasional moment of mild tension. And besides, there’s a certain macabre glee to be gleaned from watching a group of fools dropped into a maze from which they futilely attempt to escape the clutches of murderous goons without consciences. Isn’t there?
The performances are uniformly middle of the road, though Alema’s use of music which reminiscent of what Lucky McKee did in The Woman (2011) is so left of centre that it almost works at times. Destined to be quickly forgotten, War Games is nevertheless not the worst film of its type.
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