The End of the Game (2017) User Reviews

Quite a touching film in some ways

[austenwmoore · 9/10 · 26 August 2020]

This isn't what you expect. It's not really a story of Vegans versus Hunting, despite the fact that it sells itself as this and appears to be going that way from the outset. To me, it ended up being a story of past meets present and an exploration of what it's like to be nearing the end of life's journey. Should you try and fit in as your final years approach, or end your life happy regardless of what others might think of your past and present choices. It's like hearing your Grandad say Negro, you wince for a moment, then realise that in context of what he's saying he isn't being racist, he's just used an outdated word in a world he'll soon be leaving. It leaves you questioning your thoughts and sometimes feeling happy, sometimes guilty for giggling at the inappropriate moments and also feeling sad as you glimpse a part of your future to come.

An amazing dichotomy

[cardshark-46826 · 9/10 · 11 December 2018]

This film was a fantastic character piece. Sir Guy Wallace is a true relic in this day and age. This is so much more than just a documentary about a big game hunt. The film presents both the filmmakers vegan point of view as well as the perspective of an old colonialist trying to relive his glory days. David Graham Scott did a fantastic job of stating his views on hunting as well as paint Sir Guy Wallace as someone who is to be studied and appreciated as a living piece of history.

Brilliant

[anthonyjones-97514 · 10/10 · 26 August 2020]

I was a bit dubious about watching this documentary - mainly as i find hunting abhorrent and depressing. I expected it to be an endless verbal tug of war between the hunter and the vegan- but David Graham Scott presented it brilliantly , and simply observed and documented without confrontational judgement. Guy Wallace certainly has some horrendous hobbies - but he's undoubtedly an interesting character.

A brilliant piece of documentary film making.

Beautifully Shot, Fascinating Documentary

[macleod1972-864-121650 · 10/10 · 26 August 2020]

A little gem of a film. It's primarily a character study, the first half taking place in the snowy moors of Caithness as we follow gamekeeper Guy Wallace, a curious relic from Britain's colonial past in deerstalker and muttonchops, as he goes about his daily routine. Filmaker David Graham Scott, a confirmed vegan, then accompanies his muse on safari to Africa, where the oddly-likable old curmudgeon takes part in his last big-game hunt. What's most impressive is the way the film-maker addresses his own feelings as he follows the hunt without being too heavy-handed or dainty. There is much to enjoy, from eye-opening, drunken confessions to hilarious interactions with the locals, this is superior film-making of the highest calibre.

The end of an era?

[timbowie-83705 · 10/10 · 10 October 2019]

An original premise - the ardent vegan and the diehard old colonial eccentric finding more in common than might be expected. A respectful and humorous view of a character who is now almost extinct - a genuine eccentric. Greatly enjoyed the sympathetic treatment and what in essence is a sad story about a lonely individual - no poking fun or judgement. A delight to watch.

GAME OVER by Hugo Fluendy

[hugo_fluendy · 6 May 2020]

News that David Graham Scott's 2017 documentary The End of the Game has been picked up by the BBC, injects yet more irony into this wittily observed portrait of an ageing colonial relic and big game hunter out to bag his last trophy. There is a moment in Scott's cinematic swansong when the immaculately deadpanned irony almost becomes too much to bear. The film's premise is the central trope for our trigger-warned times; shorthand for an industry raped by nepotism, rampant plagiarism and commercial platitudes, a synecdoche in fact, for an entire culture hobbled by self-censorship and congruent banality. Scott, a lifelong militant Vegan, former drug addict and underground film-maker, is documenting Highland gamekeeper and ex-mercenary Guy Wallace on one final safari. But despite the mega-quake, tectonically awkward clash in world views, Scott's deceptively bumbling interlocutor unearths more commonality than is at first evident. So far, so Baudrilliard: the play of signification is a thematic blur of double-meaning, metaphor and self-referential doubletake. But even the rigorously vegetable-loving Scott cannot stop himself from being drawn into the drama of his own devising and begins to lust after the demise of their quarry - an ageing water buffalo, one of the so-called Big Four of game hunting which also includes lions, tigers and the other one - as much as Wallace and their Boer guides. And as Wallace bonds with the locals through a combination of not so much dog-whistle as fog-horn politics, heavy drinking and casual racism in between the gunplay, the two develop a grudging rapport. Beneath the caricatures, Scott's sometimes stately pacing and quasi-slapstick Socratic method allows him to build a more nuanced portrait of his ostensible subject(s). Both are taking one last desperate throw of the dice as they face the irrelevance of old age and watch their mutual careers slide into the vacuum of indifference and anachronism: step over the author's rotting corpse if you must, but know that Scott announced his intention to quit film-making even as The End of the Game premiered at the Glasgow Film Festival while, quite simply, Wallace's lifestyle does not prognosticate longevity. Both are a dying breed - Scott with his previous films courageously documenting his psychedelic struggles with heroin, Wallace with his self-imposed exile to the squalor of a caravan with a talking parrot on the Caithness moors - embody a lonely integrity, that of the great British eccentric. Both are Scots. And there you have it. Critical reception for the film was sadly muted for what is arguably his best film, certainly his most polished, the mature work of an artist at the height of his powers and the pinsnacle of three decades of prize-winning documentary-making. While other, less talented contemporaries reap the rewards of such dedication to their craft, a disillusioned Scott has abandoned the medium as a near unknown. That's controversial. If this was New York, Scott's films would be running back-to-back in all night Times Square fleapits, his pictures - he is a talented painter - would be fetching heavy dough in smart Tribeca galleries and Wallace would have his own TV show. If this was almost anywhere else, Scott would be a national treasure or cult hero at least. Instead we have BBC Scotland. As the credits roll, you find yourself wishing for more of his brand of unflinching honesty, no matter how tongue-in-cheek, how ironic.