I sorta knew I was in trouble when REINDEER GAMES opened with a laughable, hard-boiled, film-noir-wannabe voiceover by Ben Affleck. Yeah, Ben Affleck. The guy shoving animal crackers down Liv Tyler's panties in ARMAGEDDON. The lesbian-loving comic book artist in CHASING AMY. Sayin' lines like "doing a hard five for grand theft auto." Hell, he barely looks old enough to drive, let alone be a car thief.

But heck, it's directed by John Frankenheimer (SECONDS, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, THE FOURTH WAR, 52 PICK-UP, DEAD BANG), Gary Sinise plays a sleazy villain in the Mickey Rourke mold, Link from tv's MOD SQUAD is doin' his whole creep thug thing (solid), and Charlize Theron's on her back ripping her jeans and panties off within the first 20 minutes. In other words, there should be enough at work here to keep me from thinking about how I wanted Affleck's role to be played by Nic Cage. Or Patrick Swayze. Hell, I'd rather watch Lorenzo Lamas as the freshly-released con who gets mixed up in the classic rob-an-Indian-casino-scheme.

The setup, oh the endless setup that it is, requires us to make plenty of leaps in logic, all accompanied by Affleck's constant smirk. So, we get lots of The Case of the Talking Killers, in which Sinise and cohorts blab, blab, blab about the crime in assorted diners and motel pools. They even force Affleck to wear a ridiculous cowboy hat as a disguise. For God's sake, didn't they see PHANTOMS!

After the set-up and Affleck's numerous, Bond-like brushes with death, we reach the obligatory set-piece finale. Unfortunately, the flashforward opening has telegraphed 90% of what should be the action-packed climax. Too bad we know it's just the setup (good God, another one?) for the movie's really totally outrageous final plot twist. Guys, I don't mind a good out-of-left-field plot twist. I just don't like it when it smells of third-act desperation on the screenwriter's part.

Vapid and nowhere near inventive as something called REINDEER GAMES needs to be, copies of this sucker could replace lumps of coal in bad kids' stockings.