Game Night (2018) [Blu-ray]
Comedy | Crime | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline: This is not a game.

Bateman and McAdams star as Max and Annie, whose weekly couples game night gets kicked up a notch when Maxs charismatic brother, Brooks (Chandler), arranges a murder mystery party, complete with fake thugs and faux federal agents. So when Brooks gets kidnapped, its all part of the game right? But as the six uber-competitive gamers set out to solve the case and win, they begin to discover that neither this "game" nor Brooks are what they seem to be. Over the course of one chaotic night, the friends find themselves increasingly in over their heads as each twist leads to another unexpected turn. With no rules, no points, and no idea who all the players are, this could turn out to be the most fun theyve ever had or game over.

Storyline: A group of friends who meet regularly for game nights find themselves entangled in a real-life mystery.

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Michael Reuben, May 23, 2018 Game Night is that rare creature among Warner Brothers' recent releases—a comedy that's actually funny. It's an unexpected turn from the writing and directing team of John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, who, three years ago, perpetrated the execrable Vacation reboot/remake on an unsuspecting public. Maybe they learned something from the experience. Or maybe what they needed was a script they didn't write themselves. The screenplay for Game Night is credited to Mark Perez (Accepted), and although Daley and Goldstein reportedly did a rewrite, the bones of Perez's original structure and concept appear to have kept the directors' worst impulses in check. (I'll lay odds that the running joke about self-fellatio and the subplot about one character's slow-moving sperm were Daley/Goldstein additions.) It probably also helped that star Jason Bateman was one of the producers and at one point was even slated to direct. Credit Bateman's involvement with attracting the fine ensemble cast, including some noteworthy cameos, that make Game Night worth watching.

The central figures in Game Night are Max and Annie Davis (Bateman and Rachel McAdams, the latter displaying comic chops that haven't been fully exercised since TV's Slings and Arrows). Their "meet cute" occurs at a raucous trivia contest, and they instantly bond over a shared love of winning by any means necessary. Fast forward a few years, and they're happily married with a circle of equally competitive friends. The group includes Kevin and Michelle (Lamorne Morris and Kylie Bunbury), who met and wed as teenagers, and a dim bulb named Ryan (Billy Magnussen), who brings a revolving roster of airheads to game nights and obviously doesn't care about losing as long as he has a pretty partner to take home afterwards.

The Davises' gaming events used to include another couple, neighbors Gary Kingsbury (Jesse Plemons) and his wife, Debbie (Jessica Lee), but since the Kingsburys split up, no one wants anything to do with Gary, a cop who's never out of a uniform, even at home, where his unnatural attachment to a powderpuff of a dog is the least creepy thing about him. Plemons was terrific as Todd, the baby-faced sociopath in the final season of Breaking Bad, and here he creates the ultimate portrait of the disturbing acquaintance that everyone desperately wants to avoid, even as he keeps trying to ingratiate himself back into the social group that only tolerated him because his ex-wife was good at games. Gary's ominous pauses are funnier than the dialogue he utters on either side of them.

Max Davis' hyper-competitiveness can be traced back to his cheerfully overbearing older brother, Brooks (Kyle Chandler), who always had to one-up his sibling. Now a wealthy international financier, Brooks breezes into town driving the very sports car that Max has always coveted and commandeers the Davises' game night, promising thrills the group has never seen before. He's hired an outfit that's like a stripped-down version of Consumer Recreation Services in David Fincher's The Game to provide a role-playing mystery. But there are other forces at play, and game night quickly transforms into layers of deception and threats to life and limb that may be all too real.

While Game Night never takes itself seriously, the cast plays it straight throughout, which is an essential ingredient for generating laughter from ridiculous situations. (Even the violence is played for laughs, and indeed, to borrow Burke's evasive phrase in Aliens, a few deaths are involved.) Every couple has its challenges, whether it's Max and Annie trying to treat a bullet wound by following instructions on the internet, or Kevin and Michelle constantly quarreling over her premarital one-night stand with a world-famous actor (she's kept it a secret until now), or Ryan and his latest date just trying to communicate with each other. On this particular evening, the group's resident horndog has broken with his usual habit by bringing a partner who's older, more mature and genuinely smart. She's an Irish co-worker named Sarah (Sharon Horgan)—though Ryan keeps insisting she's English—and from the moment she appears, she wears an expression of quizzical disbelief at the crazy company in which she's landed herself. (She also has an expansive repertoire of subtle putdowns, all of which sail right over Ryan's head.)

Westworld's Jeffrey Wright makes an uncredited appearance as an FBI agent who is very obviously not an FBI agent, and Danny Huston plays a wealthy and probably crooked businessman whose mansion becomes the scene of an extended game of keep-away with a rare and delicate object. When the ultimate villain is revealed, he's played by someone who's both unexpected and perfectly cast. (Watch the movie to find out who.)

Game Night wears its influences on its sleeve. The Davises' have a Wild Bunch poster prominently displayed on their wall, and references to Fincher and Tarantino abound. Pay attention during the end credits for some hilarious additional revelations, and be sure to wait for the post-credit sequence, which springs a comic trap that's been carefully laid throughout the film.

Game Night isn't novel or ground-breaking, but it succeeds on the strength of its cast's group chemistry, an occasionally surprising plot turn and a snappy pace that's essential to effective comedy. Warner's Blu-ray is light on extras but technically superior and, accordingly, recommended.

[CSW] -2.4- Mostly amusing bit of fluff. Nothing that's going to change your life or affect you deeply here, but it's reasonably enjoyable while it's playing. Hardly a classic, but it has the advantage of a strong cast that makes the most of the material, a few good one-liners, and enough twists and turns to the plot to keep you awake. Sometimes this is exactly the sort of thing you want to watch.
[V5.0-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box


º º