Dangerous Game (also known as Snake Eyes) is a 1993 drama film directed by Abel Ferrara, written by Nicholas St. John, and starring Madonna, Harvey Keitel, and James Russo. Plot Utilizing a film-within-a-film format, the overall plot involves New York City-based director Eddie Israel directing actors Sarah Jennings and Frank Burns in a Hollywood marital-crisis drama, Mother of Mirrors, which is about a formerly wealthy but unemployed husband who berates his newly religious wife about what he considers her hypocritical aversion to their sex-and-drug lifestyle. During the shooting of that film, Israel becomes more and more demanding of his actors, growing increasingly obsessive with finding the ugly truths beneath the story's surface. All the while, his own carelessness and bad behavior with his own family begins to erode him and to corrode his marriage to Madlyn. Cast Release Dangerous Game opened in US theaters on November 19, 1993. In 2007, Ferrara recalled, This was the first production by Madonna's Maverick Picture Company, a division of the newly formed entertainment company Maverick. In Japan, the film was released under the name Body II as a sequel to Madonna's other 1993 film Body of Evidence which had previously been released as Body. Neither film is directly connected to each other in narrative nor storyline. The video release of the film was banned in Ireland, most likely due to a violent rape scene. The cinema distributors (Abbey Films) never submitted it for an Irish theatrical release. The decision was appealed by PolyGram Filmed Entertainment – the viewing took place on 23 November, where the ban was upheld. Critical reception The film received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 31% of 16 reviews were positive, with an average rating of 4.09/10. Both The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times praised Dangerous Game, with Janet Maslin of the former complimenting both Keitel and Madonna for their acting, and admiring the film's "raw, corrosive" quality: "Shot in a grainy, urgent style with occasional lapses into video, it has a fury that goes well beyond the story at hand, and an energy level that transcends the story's self-indulgence. This tough, abrasive film maker is seldom without his deadly serious side. 'Dangerous Game' is angry and painful, and the pain feels real." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times found it "compelling and explosive", saying, "[I]t's a film of no-holds-barred language,