Game Night

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Directed by: John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein
Written by: Mark Perez
Starring: Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, Kyle Chandler, Sharon Horgan, Billy Magnussen, Lamorne Morris, Kylie Bunbury, Jesse Plemons, Michael C. Hall, Danny Huston, Chelsea Peretti, Camille Chen
Action/Comedy/Crime - 100 min          Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 22 Feb 2018
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While waiting for a different film to start, my podcast co-host, Hannah, and I compared our chicken scratch notes from Game Night.  Hannah wrote, “kinda stupid”.  I wrote, “sibling rivalry affects sperm”.  This is not an indication audience members will divine disparate messages and walk away with conflicting lessons learned.  I bet most viewers will split between ‘kinda stupid’ and the ones quoting the funniest lines.  In interviews, Jason Bateman says Game Night “is funnier than it needs to be.”  Bateman recognizes Game Night is not here to make you think; it’s supposed to make you laugh, shock you, make you guess at plot twists, and send you on your way with a smile on your face.  

I’m on board.  Game Night is stupid and it made me laugh.  It’s one of those ‘I can’t believe he/she did that comedies’ which create preposterous situations to see how its characters react to them.  Girls Trip is a recent example of this method done very well.  Bad Moms Christmas is an example of how not to do it.  Game Night is also one of those familiar setups where we know we cannot believe everything we’re being shown.  There are blurred lines which directly recall Michael Douglas in The Game and Steve Carell and Tina Fey in Date Night.  How much of this is real and how much is fake is in the gimmick range of techniques to make the audience lean in a bit more to see if they can figure it out before the big reveal.
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Nobody can feel left out of the subject matter though.  We know the concept of game nights and we know how our family and friends react to them.  There are those who take Scattergories and Trivial Pursuit as seriously as life and death.  Others are more passive and could care less who wins or loses as long as everyone has fun.  Max and Annie (Bateman and Rachel McAdams – Central Intelligence and Doctor Strange) are über-competitive game players and get married because they find that to be the most attractive quality about each other.  They host a weekly game night at their house for their small group of friends and the most unbelievable part about it are the games they choose.  Charades, Pictionary, and Jenga appear to be their games of choice but in real life, these two would be way beyond that.
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Max’s brother, Brooks (Kyle Chandler, Carol), breezes through town and this may be why Max has low sperm motility.  Brooks has always won at everything over Max, lives in Europe, invested early in Panera Bread, and passive aggressively belittles Max in every situation.  Brooks promises the group a game night they will never forget, a kidnapping mystery event where clues will lead the winning team to find the victim.  The audience does not know how much is real and how much is staged, but this frame is only the vehicle to get the characters into those ridiculous situations to let the comedy unfold.
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Our game players here are square and domesticated couples who come together once a week to do something square and domesticated.  In walks a crime element and none of them have the faculties to deal with it.  Annie disinfects someone’s bullet hole with Chardonnay and the various couples spend their time airing their current relationship grievances while they run for their lives from bad guys.  Kevin and Michelle (Lamorne Morris and Kylie Bunbury) argue over what celebrity Michelle may or may not have hooked up with in the past.  Ryan and Sarah (Billy Magnussen (Ingrid Goes West) and Sharon Horgan) are on a first date not going very well.  Max and Annie are arguing about the prospect of parenthood.  These are subjects most of us would put on hold and return to after the car chases, trespassing, and gun play.
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Co-directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the team behind the National Lampoon’s Vacation remake, create a light comedy romp with streaks of action, intrigue, and thrills.  They know the audience will study for clues about the plot twists and to their credit, they keep us guessing until the very end.  However, I am pretty sure there are plot holes which could tear a hole in the space-time continuum if you start dissecting details.  Jesse Plemons (Hostiles) shows up as Max and Annie’s creepy neighbor - the guy who really wants an invite to game night, but the rest of the group wants nothing to do with.  Plemons plays his character with too much eye contact and a slow speech pattern which comes off very well and is one of the stronger elements in the package.  Game Night as a whole does not break any new ground, but it will not bore the audience with clichés and terrible dialogue either.  You will laugh – just don’t be too ashamed later on when you realize how stupid the things you were laughing at are. ​
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