4/5 Stars
“Game Night,” directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (“Spider-Man: Homecoming”), stars Jason Bateman (“Ozark”) and Rachel McAdams (“Spotlight”) as Max and Annie, two extremely competitive people who are very much invested in their routine game nights with their friends. When Max’s brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler, “Bloodline”) drops in on them unexpectedly with the game night to end all game nights, Max is immediately thrown off due to his competitive nature born out of spite for his wealthier, significantly more successful brother. When Brooks is kidnapped, Max, Annie and their friends Billy Magnussen (“Black Mirror”), Lamorne Morris (“New Girl”), Kylie Bunbury (“Pitch”) and Sharon Horgan (“Catastrophe”) must find him by the end of the night. One problem: they still think they are playing a game.
This movie was extremely entertaining and wildly funny. Here is the most shocking part: It was surprisingly well written and directed. Those last two terms are used because when it comes to comedies like these, they are usually as cheap as cheap can be. They are very bland, flat sets, featuring non-dynamic lighting, generic shots and a whole host of other cheap cutarounds that have really diminished the quality of a lot of comedies we get nowadays, which is why it is so refreshing to see this movie was as well made as it was.
The script, for something that seemed fairly straightforward and simple, was actually well written, considering this story had a ton of twists and turns that viewers legitimately do not see coming. A lot of those twists had to do with how good these characters were. This was probably one of if not the best comedy ensemble quite possibly since “The Hangover,” and it is even harder to do here because it is more characters to flesh out. Granted, the writer does take a little bit of the easy way out when it comes to developing some of the side characters by making the whole point of their arc just one joke per couple, but the jokes were thought out and well developed, and the actors all do a really great job delivering them.
Bateman and McAdams are spectacular. They both have really great chemistry, and it is very easy to buy them as a couple. Bateman has this stigma of always playing the same character in all the comedies he has done over the years. He is so good at it, and he manages to always make his characters have so much more charm, charisma and just overall intelligence than is usually required. It also helps that he is a legitimately great actor. McAdams is somebody who has always seemed really nice in person, but she has some amazing scene-stealing moments in this movie.
For the supporting players, it was apparent from the trailers that Chandler and Jesse Plemons (“Black Mirror”) would both be scene stealers. Chandler is clearly having a ball with the part they wrote for him, and Plemons does such an amazing job taking the “creepy neighbor” mantra and amping it up to new levels of ridiculousness for comedic purposes. Major shoutout to Billy Magnussen, who, as an actor, has not impressed with his last couple of roles, but here, his comedic one-liners help to really establish his character as this idiot who just unintentionally spouts wisdom without even realizing it, and it makes for a lot of the laughs.
There are a couple problems with this movie, but only one is glaringly obvious that it sticks out, which is that like most comedies, the message is a super easy quick fix. That is not necessarily a detriment to the film itself, but it is something that is being seen in a lot of comedies nowadays, to the point that it is starting to get old. Without spoiling what the actual message is, the fact that it is so simple and easy to grasp kind of takes away from the overall enjoyment of this movie. This is not necessarily a criticism of the movie itself, but more so with the genre, which desperately needs a fresh, new set of eyes to introduce just a little bit of complexity back into it.
With all of that being said, “Game Night” is a very refreshing take on a genre that has had a lot of duds recently. A surprisingly well-written script, great interesting characters and a third act twist to end all third act twists each help to make one forget the simple message that the film falls victim to by the time it ends.
Image from Warner Bros. Pictures via YouTube.com
