Would you ever screw over a mate for a fortune? Destroy his marriage for your personal gain? Would you go as far as too push him to the brink of suicide? This isn’t the plot of Bravo’s next reality TV show (well, we’ll have to wait and see on that one), but the dilemmas facing failing lawyer Glen Perkins.
He’s in love with Drake’s gorgeous wife, Catherine, but is more interested in the alcoholic writer’s hidden diamond. Catherine, meanwhile, is fed up with Drake’s impotence and I all too easily wooed by Drake’s offer of escape and divorce plans.
Drake tries to play both sides of against each other and quickly becomes embroiled in a tangled web of lies, suicide pacts and increasingly intense hallucinations. How does it turn out? That would be telling…
However it is safe to say that The Drinking Game is well written and played, though Glen isn’t quite evil/insane enough and Drake’s drunkenness does sway into being overplayed a bit, and the occasional mime scenes are wonderfully farcical in a Benny Hill sort of way. Admittedly the ending is also a bit soft, but it’s worth going to see for just for Tom Elstob’s peripheral characters, if nothing else.
The Drinking Game isn’t going to turn heads, but it is a thoroughly good hour of entertainment. Question is, can you stomach it at that time in the morning?
3/5
Richard Biggs
