Review: Game Night

Game Night
Cert: 15 / 100 mins / Dir. John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein / Trailer



Now obviously, trailers notwithstanding, the audience's initial frame of mind before the movie even begins is in no way, shape or form the fault of Game Night screenwriter Mark Perez, directors John Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, nor indeed the plentiful cast. So, as the Cineworld Unlimited faithful were gathered for the latest advance screening to which they'd been invited, the patron to my immediate left waited until the point in the trailer for Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs where the names of a lot of famous people are listed on-screen for doing the voices. They then observed loudly "Oh, they've got a lot of famous people doing the voices for that!". What I'm saying here is that I tried to give Game Night a fair crack of the whip, but may not have been quite as receptive to A Good Time as the rest of the crowd*¹. This, I thought to myself, is going to be a long night. And so it proved.

So. Super-competitive suburban couple Annie (Rachel McAdams) and Max (Jason Bateman) host regular game-nights at their house with a group of friends, playing everything from charades to board-games. But when Max's high rolling investment-trader brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler) arrives one evening, he soon devises an idea to raise the stakes, and arranges an interactive role-playing experience in which one of the players will be kidnapped while the rest have to track them down. It's here that Brooks's shady private life catches up with him and the lines between gaming and gangsters become dangerously blurred. But by this point, the players have little choice...

So by now you'll be thinking Oh, so is 'Game Night' like David Fincher's 1997 movie 'The Game', but played more for laughs? Yes, frankly. There's the feeling watching the trailer that it can't quite work out what it wants to be, action-comedy or character-led, dynamic thriller. And in that respect, the trailer is a very fitting representation of the final film. From the off, it becomes clear that everyone's trying slightly too hard, here. But with a cast headed by seasoned performers such as McAdams and Bateman, this feels like it could be more the result of over-direction than flat-out overacting.

That's not to say there isn't fun to be had in the meanwhile, however. The action and comedy setpieces work well in and of themselves (with many laugh-out-loud moments), there's just slightly too much plot, too many sub-plots and too many inevitable twists for the already-weighty run-time, bludgeoning the audience into not thinking too hard about anything. It would also be a much smoother (not to mention shorter) ride without the weapons-grade application of film references*² and characters constantly stopping to point out the punchlines*³.

Our players never give the less than their full attention, but Game Night feels like it's been cast entirely with supporting-actors, even though McAdams and Bateman should be (and have been) above that level by now. I suppose I should just be grateful that the whole thing isn't being headed by Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler. Within the first ten minutes, Annie and Max's surly, withdrawn, policeman neighbour, Gary (Jesse Plemons), feels like a joke which is going to wear thin very quickly, but actually turns out to be one of the most restrained and consistently funny high-points of the whole affair.

Interestingly uneven, Game Night is an amusing time-passer which certainly beats sitting round the backgammon board for the evening. But in terms of real skill and excitement, Daley and Goldstein are still trying to understand the rulebook…

The Game, Date Night.
I mean it's basically that.



Not unless it's raining and you've got a couple of hours to kill.



Entertaining as this is, rewatch-value will be low; stream/rent.



Nope.



Nope.



Nope.



Level 2: This film stars Sharon Horgan who was in that Man Up, as was Simon 'Plutt' Pegg, Harriet 'Kalonia' Walter and Phoebe 'L3-37' Waller-Bridge.





*¹ And not to get too far ahead of myself, but boy did I know that they enjoyed it. I mean I quite enjoyed it too, but when the adorementioed patron bellowed with laughter every single time someone fell over (that's quite a lot), it's difficult not to resent the film for going so low, so often. But hey, I'm here to judge the movie not the audience, right? Haha. Right. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² At one point, Annie brandishes a handgun in a bar, directly quoting the entire "If any of you fucking pricks move..." line from Pulp Fiction. Max immediately follows this up with "Haha yeah, a bit of Pulp Fiction there for you!". As if a) the people who remember Pulp Fiction hadn't noticed, and b) this will then become funny to anyone who hasn't seen Pulp Fiction and therefore has no reference point for the gag. On top of this there are many other heavy-handed (although some reasonably subtle) references to movies from across the years. Like, 'fan-film' many. You don't have to convince us you're a film geek, Mark Perez - you're writing screenplays for a living now, we'll sort of assume that to be the case... ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ Using the same gun, Annie accidentally shoots Max in the arm (this is in the trailer). After a moment of realisation, including a lengthy framing of the bullet wound, Annie then shrilly exclaims "Oh no, I can't believe I shot you!". Oh, is that what happened there? Thanks for pointing it out. ^{[ BACK ]}

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• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
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