CineLinkr #129: The Story Behind the Puzzle
Spoilers ahead: for the puzzle and the movies/games
This post assumes you've already solved the puzzle. It reveals all categories and their connections, and discusses plot details, endings, and spoilers for featured movies/games throughout.
Ruthless People finds a perfect kidnapping-comedy problem: the husband does not want his wife returned. The criminals prepared for police. They did not prepare for Danny DeVito treating the ransom call like a customer-service victory.
🟢 Easy: Sports teams form behind bars
Movies: The Longest Yard · Mean Machine · Escape to Victory · Gridiron Gang
The Longest Yard and Mean Machine share the same basic engine, moved from American football to association football: inmates build a team to play their guards. Vinnie Jones was an obvious choice for the latter, having spent his real career making midfield look like a parole violation.
Escape to Victory casts Pelé, Bobby Moore, and Sylvester Stallone as Allied prisoners in a Nazi propaganda match. Gridiron Gang moves the idea to juvenile detention, where a season offers structure outside the institution's usual punishments.
🟡 Medium: Ski trips slide into trouble
Movies: Hot Tub Time Machine · Better Off Dead · Downhill · Ski Patrol
The resort hot tub in Hot Tub Time Machine sends four men back to 1986. The film understands that nostalgia is less magical when you have to repeat your worst haircut in person.
Better Off Dead builds toward a ski race while pelting John Cusack with surreal side jokes. In Downhill, one avalanche scare exposes a marriage. Ski Patrol adds sabotage and a greedy developer. Fresh powder has terrible judgment about whom it invites.
🔵 Hard: Amateur kidnappers lose control of the plan
Movies: Ruthless People · A Life Less Ordinary · Saving Silverman · Pain & Gain
The Sun Gym gang behind Pain & Gain really did abduct a Miami businessman. Michael Bay treats their escalating incompetence as black comedy, but the underlying case remains brutal.
The other three plans are romantic or financial shortcuts attempted by people who should not manage a group lunch. A Life Less Ordinary gives the hostage opinions about her own abduction. Saving Silverman lets two friends imprison the woman they blame for ruining their friendship. Kidnapping is a logistical genre, and logistics keep winning.
🟣 Tricky: Romance borrowed through someone else's words
Movies: Cyrano de Bergerac · Roxanne · The Half of It · Sierra Burgess Is a Loser
Cyrano writes Christian's letters because he believes his own face disqualifies him from love. Roxanne moves the bargain to a Washington firehouse and lets Steve Martin turn one insult scene into a competitive sport.
Ellie writes Paul's messages to Aster in The Half of It. Sierra uses Veronica's identity while texting Jamey. The click comes when the romantic triangle gains a fourth corner: the person speaking, the person being heard, the credited author, and the actual author. This arrangement has excellent prose and no future.
The kidnappers caused the loudest mess, but Cyrano's pen did more damage with less equipment.
Today's PixelLinkr puzzle also rewards questionable alliances, only its betrayals happen between players on purpose.