the purpose of funny game be to provoke and disturb the audience . it do this so well that you may not be able to watch it a curious thing for a filmmaker to shoot for and but hey and that the austrian for you . michael haneke already make this film in 1997 before go on to make other challenge film like the piano teacher and cache . now he have remake it and almost shot for shot ( see my note at the end ) and in english . his reason be apparently just that he would like the film to be see by a wider audience . the hilarious part there be that no matter what language it in and this film be not very marketable . it not only a violent movie but a movie about violence . it toy with the audience expectation about how movie be suppose to work . it allow brutal thing to happen and then indict u for want to see brutal thing happen . it set in a lovely vacation home on a lake somewhere and the refuge of an affluent and upper crust family whose member amuse themselves on long car trip by play name that tune with opera cd . we know little else about them other than their name represent george ( tim roth ) the father and anna ( naomi watt ) the mother and and georgie ( devon gearhart ) the young son . just after they arrive for an extended stay and a young man in a tennis outfit stop by . he say his name be peter ( brady corbet ) . he stay with the neighbor for a couple day and and the wife of that family ask him to come over and borrow four egg from anna . anna gladly hand them over . peter drop them on his way out and apologize profusely in his soft and whimpery voice and and anna get some new egg for him . while this be go on and peter buddy paul ( michael pitt ) show up . like peter and he dress in tennis white and be unfailingly polite . also like peter and he be slightly odd in his behavior . the boys language be grammatically correct and unprovocative and yet at the same time slightly off . some of their answer be non sequiturs . they ask question that do not seem to mean anything . they refer to each other by name other than peter and paul . haneke present this sequence in a way that almost unbearably tense . no one be do anything blatantly wrong from a moral standpoint while even from a purely social standpoint the boy be more awkward than anything else and only gradually grow intrusive and presumptuous over time . part of the reason the scene be so unsettling be that you can not quite put your finger on what unsettle about it . finally the dam break and the incident turn into a full blown home invasion . george be incapacitate unmanned and really and a he be force to see his family suffer and powerless to help . peter and paul play mind game with the family and with the audience . peter be the young and less confident of the two and while paul play with chill menace by the soft spoken michael pitt run the show . haneke goal be to unnerve u by subvert our expectation . he set it up a a violent film and and yet almost every act of violence take place off camera . instead of the frantic edit one normally see in movie about killer and victim and haneke shoot in long and unbroken take . he keep u distance from the action by minimize close ups and by frequently compose shot that avoid the actor face and or that focus on someone other than the person speaking . and then and once we feel safely distance from the horror and haneke yank u into it by have one of the character look right into the camera and address u . the film be not fun in the usual way that movie be fun . it deliberately avoid give the payoff we expect . yet i do not find it frustrate or aggressive . some provocative filmmaker seem intent on irritate or turn off the audience . with haneke and i get the feeling that once you understand what he up to and he glad to have you in on the joke . he certainly go about execute it in a masterful way . ( finally and a note on how the film be remade . only a few minor thing prevent it from be literally a shot for shot remake . the dialogue and apart from be in english instead of german and be likewise almost identical . the set be virtual twin of those in the original . haneke have basically make it so that native english speaker have their own version of his film . he have not water it down or alter it in the translation . ) .