Nemesis Game (2003)
Directed by Jesse Warn
Written by Jesse Warn
Starring Carly Pope, Adrian Paul, Ian McShane
Release Date September 16th, 2003
Published September 16th, 2003
With all the trash that gets dumped in the direct-to-video market, it's rare when you find one that is not a poorly-crafted action knockoff or a T & A soft-core porno. Nemesis Game, directed by up and comer Jesse Warn, is neither of those things. Though Nemesis Game isn't exactly theater quality, it shows the potential this young director has to do great things in the future.
The story begins in your typical police station interrogation room where a detective (Ian "Lovejoy" McShane) is questioning a woman named Emily Gray (Rena Owen). Emily is famous for having attempted to drown a small child with seemingly no motive whatsoever. It's years later and Ms. Gray has been recently released from psychiatric care only to have killed a college freshman, again with seemingly no motive. Her only answer to repeated questioning is the quixotic "What if I told you I knew the meaning of life?"
From there we switch gears to a comic shop run by Vern (Adrian Paul), a comic book philosopher with a love for riddles. Vern runs a side business where he takes suburbanite nerds out to an abandoned building and leads them on a D & D style quest by having them answer riddles that lead to a particular conclusion. In all honesty I have know idea what the purpose of these scenes are, only that they set up the connection between Vern and the first woman to ever play his little riddle game, our heroine Sara played by Carly Pope.
For years, Sara has been obsessed with riddles and thinks maybe Vern can lead her to a series of riddles that when solved can tell you the meaning of life. Ian McShane's cop also happens to be Sara's father and Emily Gray happens to be linked to the riddle Sara is searching for. Jay Baruchel from TV's short lived “Undeclared” has a small role as a victim and Brenden Fehr has an equally small but more meaningful role as a pothead skater and customer at Vern's comic shop.
With Vern's help, Sara seeks the answers to the meaning of life riddle while her father attempts to determine why Emily Gray snapped after seeming to have recovered while in care.
The two stories dovetail in an ending that is the film’s strongest point for its suddenness and bravery. Honestly, even as the credits rolled I kept waiting for the film to start again and undo itself from what I had just seen.
What doesn't work though is the casting, especially former “Highlander” TV star Adrian Paul. His lack of charisma and horribly wooden action style threaten to cave in the film’s momentum in the moments when it desperately needs it. Paul is especially undercut by the far more charismatic but limited performances of Baruchel and Fehr, who's acting and youth make Paul look like an old man desperately trying to act cool. Nemesis Game cries out for a more charismatic actor or at least persona than what Paul provides.
As for the star of the film, Carly Pope, she has just the right mix of wits and cuteness to make her character work. She perfectly mixes naive curiosity and survival instinct to make her character's purpose seem plausible.
The cast member who makes the best impression though is Rena Owen as Emily. She has a mystical, beatific quality that makes her seem almost supernatural. Each of the other actors always say her full name and say it with reverence as if speaking it were an incantation. It works in making the audience uncomfortable in her presence, as if she really does know the meaning of life but if she tells you she will have to kill you.
Jesse Warn both directed and wrote the screenplay for Nemesis Game and with a bigger budget he could have really done something with this concept. With a better actor in place of Adrian Paul, improved cinematography and set design and a better film score (The current score is a mishmash of screechy thriller music from every other direct-to-video thriller ever made), and Nemesis Game could have been a career maker. As it is, the film is a signpost of a hopefully bright future for this talented filmmaker.
