5 ideas about a movie: Game Night

Hello!

Welcome to a review of a comedy whose trailers’ actually made a fairly good impression. This is Game Night!

IMDb summary: A group of friends who meet regularly for game nights find themselves trying to solve a murder mystery.

1. Game Night was written by Mark Perez (he has written a couple of obscure comedies before). I thought that the writing for this comedy was quite good: fairly smart and even original at times. I loved the actual idea of a game night – that opening set-up of the main couple’s relationship through the various games was super fun! I also really appreciated the fact that the movie celebrated adult friendship. All the film and pop culture references were much appreciated too. Lastly, I liked how the movie set up some details and actually delivered on them – the creepy neighbor had a role in the film and wasn’t just used for a funny cameo, the Fight Club recurring verbal joke ended up being more than just a verbal jab, while even the minor doctor character reappeared.
2. For all the good parts of the writing, there was an equal quantity of bad ones (a bit less, maybe, I don’t want to be too harsh on this movie). I did like the fact that the characters fairly quickly realized that they weren’t playing a game. However, that actual mystery of the film that they found themselves in was a bit too convoluted: there were too many layers of fakeness and reality for it to make sense. Also, ‘the everyday Joe/Jane’ characters did Jar Jar Binks-ed their way through a lot of the plot and got lucky one too many times. Still, I wasn’t that mad at the picture for some these inconsistencies or stupid-ish moments, as I found the story of the film entertaining on the whole.
3. Game Night was directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. The duo was on the writing team for Spider-Man: Homecoming and are also supposed to helm the Flashpoint movie for DCEU (if it ever materializes). They also did the questionable Horrible Bosses comedy and the god-awful Vacation movie. Weirdly, I believe that they did a good job with this film: the movie was exciting and was paced well in addition to being of appropriate length (90minute-ish/short and sweet/doesn’t overstay its welcome). The score was also fun: it has electronic music vibes and featured few familiar hits. The credits were cool too: they were very thematically and narratively appropriate for the picture.
4. Game Night had quite a big cast, consisting of actors of various caliber. At the centre of the film were three main couples, all of whom had somekind of personal problem to argue about during the quiter scenes: there was Rachel McAdams (Doctor Strange, Spotlight, Southpaw) and Jason Bateman (heard good things about his Netflix show Ozark) going on about having kids, New Girls’ Lamorne Morris and Kylie Bunbury (a TV actress) bickering about past celebrity hookups, and Billy Magnussen (the prince in Into The Woods) and Sharon Horgan (a British/Irish TV actress) just getting to know each other though arguments about everything.
5. In smaller roles, there was the brother character played by Manchester By The Sea’s Kyle Chandler (Bateman and he do look fairly similar and they could actually be brothers). Westworld’s Jeffrey Wright also had a short scene (can’t wait for that TV show to come back). Plus, Fargo’s Jesse Plemons was absolutely brilliant in being creepy! Lastly, there was also a revolving door of villains and bad guys played by both familiar and new faces. They were too numerous and their roles – too insignificant to list here, though.

In short, Game Night is an entertaining and fun comedy with some neat moments. Not a sure hit but worthy of a watch.

Rate: 3.7/5

Trailer: Game Night trailer