Game Night

Dir: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein

2018

***

I pretty much hated everything about John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s 2015 Vacation remake but I was happy to overlook it thanks to their great work on the Spider-Man: Homecoming screenplay and because I liked Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2. The film was written by Mark Perez, so again I decided to ignore the fact that he’d written Herbie: Fully Loaded and remembered that he was also responsible for 2006’s Accepted. Unfortunately Game Night isn’t as good as the trailer had me believe, indeed – all the good bits are in said trailer. I thought the story was pretty strong, it just didn’t work for me. I’m a big fan of Jason Bateman but the films he stars in have become incredibly samey and predictable. Each character was badly written and unoriginal and I wanted to like it far more than I actually did. I also hated the script. A huge shame then when it balanced the dark humour of the story rather well. It begins with married competitive gamer couple Max (Jason Bateman) and Annie (Rachel McAdams). After years of happy marriage they are trying to have a child, but their attempts are unsuccessful due to Max's stress surrounding his feelings of inadequacy - perticularly when compared to his successful brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler). During Max and Annie's routine weekend game night with their friends Ryan (Billy Magnussen) and married couple Kevin (Lamorne Morris) and Michelle (Kylie Bunbury), Brooks shows up Max by arriving in a Corvette Stingray (Max's dream car) and sharing an embarrassing childhood story about Max giving himself oral pleasure with the aid of a bungee cord. Brooks offers to host the next game night at a house he's renting while he's in town. Meanwhile, Max and Annie are trying to keep their game nights secret from their neighbor Gary (Jesse Plemons), an awkward police officer who is divorced from their friend Debbie. When the guests, including Ryan's new date, Sarah (Sharon Horgan) – who is far more intelligent than his previous guests - arrive at Brooks' house the following week, Brooks says he's initiated an interactive role-playing mystery game, promising the winner his Stingray. A man dressed as an FBI agent (an uncredited Jeffrey Wright) bursts into the home and informs them of the narrative of the mystery, only for two masked men to break in and assault him and Brooks. The guests believe the assault is part of the game. After Brooks is dragged out of the house, the couples begin to solve the mystery using the clues left behind by the actor. Using his GPS location, Max and Annie track Brooks down to a seedy bar and, using a pistol left behind by Brooks during the struggle (which they believe to be fake), manage to take the keys to the storage closet, where Brooks is being held. After Annie mistakenly fires the gun and shoots Max in the arm, confirming the weapon is real and that they are in actual danger, the three escape. Brooks admits that he actually makes his living buying and selling illegal items on the black market, in particular a Fabergé egg sought by a man known only as the Bulgarian and owned by a man using the alias Marlon Freeman. With his captors in pursuit, Brooks exits the moving car to guarantee Max and Annie's escape. Eventually, the others learn what they've become involved in, avoiding police because of Brooks' warnings. Trying to determine the identities of the Bulgarian (a surprise performance from Michael C. Hall) and Marlon Freeman (Danny Huston), they show up at Gary's house, under the false pretense of a game night, in order to use his police computer, where Max discovers the address of Marlon Freeman (real name: Donald Anderton). The group leaves Gary's house and arrives at Anderton's address, where he is hosting an underground fight club. As the others search the house, Ryan spots the egg in a wall safe and is caught trying to steal it. The group escapes with the egg, but accidentally break it. They discover the egg is a worthless fake, but end up finding a list of names that was stored inside of it, realizing this was what the Bulgarian wanted. The group finds Brooks and his captors on an under-construction bridge and move in to rescue him. Before the captors are able to kill them, the group is saved by Gary, who is then shot in the chest. Max and Annie try to encourage him to pull through by promising to invite him to every future game night. Gary then reveals that he faked the entire scenario in an attempt to trick them into letting him join game night again. He is, however, unaware about the egg, and they are immediately attacked by the real Bulgarian, who captures Brooks after he swallows the list, revealed to be people in the witness protection program. Max and Annie use Brooks' Corvette to drive to the airport and stop the Bulgarian from taking off with Brooks in his jet. They knock the Bulgarian out, tie him up, and free Brooks. Three months later, Brooks, now under house arrest for his crimes, has managed to sell the list for $3 million. Meanwhile, Annie has finally become pregnant. While the group (including an inept Gary) are continuing their game night, men with guns get ready to storm the building and you can’t help but dread the sequel. I do wonder whether this was a happy film to make. Jason Bateman was originally set to direct the film but John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein would only work on a rewrite of the script if they could also direct. I think I would have preferred a Bateman film in some respects but in all honesty, some of the directional techniques used in the film were absolutely brilliant. I have to say, I did like the chemistry between Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams – theirs actually hampered everyone else’s performances in a way. I also liked the many references to various board games, some of which were more obvious than others. It just got a little too ridiculous for its own good. A far more subtle approach would have worked better in my opinion and if there were only one or two outrageous scenes in the script they would have had far more impact. It is only just a three star film and that is because of the cinematography, the nearly great idea and that excellent one-shot scene.