Main Cast: Harvey Keitel, Madonna, James Russo, Nancy Ferrara, Reilly Murphy
Release Year: 1993
Country: US
Run Time: 107 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Celebrated indie filmmaker Eddie Israel (Harvey Keitel) heads to California to shoot his latest movie, Mother of Mirrors, an examination of a marriage in which the wife pressures her husband to abandon their formerly mutual sex-and-drugs lifestyle and seek the same kind of religious conversion she has experienced. Leaving behind his own wife Madlyn (Nancy Ferrara) and his young son, Eddie explains the impetus of his latest project in a series of behind-the-scenes interviews. Meanwhile, Sarah Jennings (Madonna), a TV actress, has taken the wife role in Eddie's film, and her first item of business on the set is to sleep with Francis Burns (James Russo), who is set to play her husband. Things go sour between the two players and their conflicts spill onto the set, adding even more tension to a shoot in which Eddie alternately bullies and cajoles his actors to elicit more authentic performances. Perhaps Eddie manipulates Sarah onscreen because he's ashamed of having bedded his "very L.A." star just minutes before his wife and son arrived early for a weekend visit. Eddie soon finds the existential dilemmas of his film seeping into his own life, forcing him to question the compulsive adultery he practices. One of the first movies overseen by the film arm of Maverick, the record label and media company Madonna founded in the early '90s, Dangerous Game was produced by the singer's longtime manager, Freddy de Mann, alongside Mary E. Kane, who produced several earlier Ferrara efforts. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Review
Although it's a bit of a self-indulgent mess and its philosophical debates aren't written well enough to truly engage, this reteaming of bad-boy director Abel Ferrara with his Bad Lieutenant star, Harvey Keitel, is notable for the surprising strength of Madonna's performance. As Sarah Jennings, a television star striving to forge a career as a dramatic actress, Madonna -- a pop star who's been striving for years to forge a career as any sort of actress -- seems less mannered, more off-guard, and more affecting than she ever has before or since. Dangerous Game's self-referential structure -- big-name celebrity known for bedding her leading men stars in film about big-name celebrity who promptly beds her leading man -- could probably keep an assistant literature professor churning out post-structuralist analyses for an entire semester. Nonetheless, there is some fun in speculating how much the lines Keitel's character spits at Madonna's character stung the performer in real life. "You'd still be selling toothpaste if it wasn't for me," Eddie barks as the camera rolls, and it's hard not to substitute the phrase "making music videos" for "selling toothpaste." In interviews, Madonna complained that the final edit was nothing like the original pitch Ferrara gave her, which perhaps explains why her company underpromoted the film upon its release. Ultimately, though, it's Keitel who stands in for Ferrara and gives the film its nasty center; the director even cast his real-life wife in the role of Eddie's wife, further blurring the line between the real and the cinematic. In the end, despite Ferrara's pretensions that both his film and its film-within-a-film get at deeper issues of spirituality and self-determination, Dangerous Game can best be appreciated as an exercise in celebrity exploitation with just the thinnest veneer of art-house cred. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
Victor Argo - Director of Photography; Christina Fulton - Blonde; Dylan Hundley - Party Guest; Glenn Plummer - Burns' Buddy; Julie Pop - Morton's Waitress; John Snyder - Party Guest; Leonard Thomas - Prop Guy; Adina Winston - Party Guest; Lori Eastside - Party Guest; Hiram Ortiz - Hair; Bill Pope - Camera Operator; Anthony Redman - Swinger; Martin Schaer - Camera Operator; Jesse Long - Script Supervisor; Randall Sabusawa - Producer; Mindy Eshelman - Wardrobe; Noga Isackson - 1st AD; Linda Murphy - Boom Operator; Steven Albert - Boxing Announcer; Robyn B. Ashley - Flight Attendant; Lili Barsha - Flight Attendant; Heather Bracken - Stewardess; Marta Bukowski - Video Tap Monitor; Jim Fitzgerald - 1st Assistant Cameraman; Juliette Hohnen - Bar Patron; Niki Munroe - Girl in Trailer
Credit
Charles Lagola - Art Director, Nathan Crowley - Art Director, Linda Murphy - Boom Operator, Randall Sabusawa - Casting, Marlene Stewart - Costume Designer, Terry Miller - First Assistant Director, Abel Ferrara - Director, Anthony Redman - Editor, Ron Rotholz - Executive Producer, Freddy de Mann - Executive Producer, Hiram Ortiz - Hair Styles, Nancy Tong - Hair Styles, Kristi Frankenheimer - Location Manager, Christian von Tippelskirch - Location Manager, Joe Delia - Composer (Music Score), Greg Sheldon - Musical Direction/Supervision, Joseph Cuervo - Makeup, Raqueli Dahan - Makeup, George Mooradian - Camera Operator, Phil Oetiker - Camera Operator, Marta N. Bukowski - Camera Operator, Steve Drellich - Camera Operator, Alex Tavoularis - Production Designer, Diana Phillips - Production Designer, Ken Kelsch - Cinematographer, Mary Kane - Producer, Stephanie Ziemer - Set Designer, Michael Barosky - Sound Mixer, Phil Nielson - Stunts Coordinator, Diana Phillips - Unit Production Manager, Abel Ferrara - Screenwriter, Nicholas St. John - Screenwriter, Robert Griffo - Production Assistant, David Hammett - Production Assistant, Alex Hennech - Production Assistant, David Stonehill - Production Assistant, Aura Truslow - Production Assistant, Stuart Levy - Sound Effects Editor, Rachel Aberly - Publicist, Pete Sillen - First Assistant Camera, Andrea Dorman - First Assistant Camera, Dennis A. Livesey - First Assistant Camera, Nicholas P. Nizich - First Assistant Camera, James Fitzgerald - First Assistant Camera, Charlie McNamara - Gaffer, Eugene D'Pasquale - Grip, Kenneth Fundus - Grip, Melvin Pukowsky - Grip, Don Cerrone - Key Grip, James Flatto - Music Editor, Helen Ostenberg - Production Coordinator, Timothy T.P. Robbins - Production Coordinator, Patti Broyles Watkins - Production Coordinator, Sean Mannion - Properties Master, Ann Miller - Properties Master, Mel Zelniker - Re-Recording Mixer, Karen Kelsall - Script Supervisor, Patton Howell Caldwell IV - Second Assistant Director, Larry McConkey - Steadicam Operator, Lorey Sebastian - Still Photographer, Pamela Withers Chilton - Costume/Wardrobe, Christine Orth - Costume/Wardrobe, Jay Dranch - ADR Editor, Melinda Eshelman - Assistant Costumer Designer, Lisa Lovaas - Assistant Costumer Designer, James Roberts - Assistant Costumer Designer, Mark Taylor - Assistant Location Manager, Eva M. Schroeder - Assistant Location Manager, Justin Budinoff - Assistant Production Coordinator, Andrew Durham - Assistant Production Coordinator, Conrad V. Brink - Assistant Properties, Thomas F. Gleason - Assistant Properties, Kevin Brink - Assistant Properties, Tom Foligno - Assistant Sound Editor, Peter Walts - Best Boy Electric, Robert Kummert - Best Boy Grip, Dominique Levy - Camera Loader, Jon Rothschild - Construction Coordinator, Nancy Collini - Costumes Supervisor, Gail Just - Costumes Supervisor, Rose Trimarco Cuervo - Costumes Supervisor, Michael Shore - Dialogue Editor, Ray Karpicki - Dialogue Editor, Jack McIntyre - Dolly Grip, Benjamin Steingart - Draftsman, Tom McGrath - Electrician, John L. Dardis - Electrician, Willie E. Dawkins - Electrician, Todd Heater - Electrician, John Milcetic - Electrician, Christopher Prampin - Electrician, Ivy Weiss - Extra Casting, Diane Conn - First Assistant Accountant, Leicia Chan - First Assistant Accountant, Joyce Villaflor - First Assistant Accountant, Craig Nisker - First Assistant Editor, Brian Johnson - First Assistant Editor, Zeborah Tidewell - First Assistant Editor, Quincy Z. Gunderson - First Assistant Editor, John Maskovich - Leadman, Gus Papadopoulos - Leadman, Kimberly Edwards Shapiro - Production Accountant, Jeff Graham - Second Assistant Camera, Alan Wolfe - Second Assistant Camera, Lisa K. Sessions - Set Dresser, Mike Malone - Set Dresser, Mark Davidson - Set Dresser, Anthony Dimeo - Set Dresser, Anthony Pappas - Set Dresser, Eric Roemheld - Set Dresser, Jennifer Taback - Set Production Assistant, Dean S. Lawrence - Set Production Assistant, Matt Golden - Storyboard Artist, James Leavey - Transportation Captain, Michael D. Menapace - Transportation Captain, Tina M. Arter - Transportation Coordinator, Jacqueline Arnot - Set Decorator, Evan W. Aaron - Craft Service/Catering, J.J. Geary - Craft Service/Catering, Chris Santo - Craft Service/Catering, Sharon McGeeney - Negative Cutter, Bill Nearhood - Swing Gang, Larry Markart - Video Playback, Ted Schelling - Video Playback, Tom Zafian - Video Playback, Anne Ross - Art Department Coordinator, Bruce Kitzmeyer - Assistant ADR Editor
The film opened in US theaters on November 19, 1993 and was trashed by critics. It found a few fans, however: Slant magazine's Ed Gonzalez called the film Madonna's only full-length masterpiece (aside from her album Erotica, which was released the year before).
Madonna herself was apparently not happy with the film. She was quoted as saying: "Even though it's a shit movie and I hate it, I am good in it." She also mentioned how the actual script was much better and her part more strongly written, but Ferrara changed a lot of it in the editing room. When asked about this, Ferrara said
“
It was just another one of our films that never came out. But on that one, the audience didn't really like the film. Madonna killed it. The first impression people get on a movie is the one that never gets out of their mind. So after Madonna got so trashed for doing Body of Evidence, she thought she was going to beat the critics to the punch and badmouth the film. And she actually got good reviews. She never got a good review from the Voice or The New York Times in her life, but she got good reviews for this movie, which she came out and trashed. I'll never forgive her for it.
”
This was the first production by Madonna's Maverick Picture Company, a division of the newly formed entertainment company Maverick.
