GAME NIGHT
US, 2018, 100 minutes, Colour.
Jason Bateman, Rachel Mc Adams, Kyle Chandler, Sharon Horgan, Billy Magnusson, Lamorne Morris, Kylie Bunbury, Jesse Plemons, Michael C..Hall, Danny Huston, Camille Chen.
Directed by John Francis Daly, Jonathan Goldstein.
This is a popular comedy with serious undertones and overtones. Some have found it hilarious. Others have found it amusing. Most audiences will find their reaction somewhere in between.
The film has a good cast including guest appearances by Dexter’s Michael C.Hall and Danny Huston. Jason Bateman and Rachel Mc Adams are Max and Andy and make a very genial hosting couple. Kyle Chandler is Jason Bateman’s boastful brother. There is a couple, Kevin and Michelle, sweethearts from childhood but suddenly finding out about a momentary lapse – and spending the rest of the film arguing about it, the man in question allegedly Denzel Washington but only someone who resembles him (and, in the cast, referred to as not-Denzel – and is the subject of an amusing post-credits sequence which most audiences rushing out will miss). There is also Ryan (Billy Magnusson) who is not the smartest man in America who brings to the games girlfriends who used to be referred in the bad old days as “dumb blonde is�. However, Ryan is also blonde and he is a “dumb blonde� par excellence (par worst). But, this time, he brings an intelligent Irish working partner, Sarah (Sharon Hogan).
Those who find the film hilarious will enjoy the characters and their characterisations, the madcap situations which eventually emerge when there are real plots instead of just made-up abduction and detection situations. Quite a lot of farce. Those who find the film on the amusing rather than hilarious level will enjoy all of the above but might well enjoy a great amount of the dialogue, some amusing references to a range of movies and actors for those in the know - as well as an unnecessary amount of superfluous coarse language.
It is good to see adults who are not just staying at home or spending their time on the Internet! Each week the couples meet for charades and all kinds of other games. However, Max and Annie have a next-door neighbour, a very serious police officer who has just separated from his wife whom he still holds on a pedestal (although most times he is seen holding his pet dog). He is played by Jesse Plemons who seems to be the unwanted onlooker but who becomes crucial to the plot as it becomes more complicated and is also the subject of an unexpected plot twist.
The key to all the shenanigans is Max’s brother, Brooks (Kyle Chandler) who seems to have been a great financial success in Europe, returns to America, wants to host a game night. He has been the bane of Max’s life, tormenting him when they were children, his being the object of Max’s envy – and, when the couple go to a doctor concerned about Annie not becoming pregnant, the cause of Max’s stress and infertility.
While everything seems an amusing game night with role-play and abduction, it turns out to be much more – but not in the way that the audience is necessarily expecting. There are some good sequences – especially when Max is shot in the arm accidentally by Annie and she goes to the pharmacy to buy all the goods for getting the bullet out, uses her iPhone to read the instructions and pours champagne to cleanse the wound… Later, Max will be accidentally stabbed in his bullet wound!
Jeffrey Wright plays an FBI officer who may or may not be real. Then there are some thugs who knock him out who seem to be the real thing. However, the contestants in the game night think this is all part of the play. Max and Annie have a confrontation with the thugs in a bar. Kevin and Michelle are stranded in Brooks’s house. Sarah, telling Ryan, goes to the organisers of the games to get the clues.
Dexter’s Michael C. Hall appears as the Bulgarian who wants his hands on the Faberge egg. Danny Huston has a cameo role as a millionaire who has the egg (and he stages Fight Club bouts in his basement which distract Ryan, though he does find the egg!)
If this sounds enjoyable, there are several twists to come which, in fact, do make it more enjoyable.
1. Popular comedy? Funny? Serious?
2. Homes, the action sequences, the mansions, the fight club, rendezvous on the bridge? The musical score?
3. The idea, Game Night and the variations?
4. The cast, comic abilities?
5. The couples, the weekly meetings, not watching television or the Internet, the variety of games, friends meeting, being competitive, charades and other games?
6. Max and Annie, hosts, their home, Gary as the policeman neighbour, their not wanting him to come? Ryan and the range of his girlfriends? Kevin and Michelle? The long marriage?
7. The flashback, Max and Annie, the competitions, competitive, the proposal, marriage? Issues of pregnancy, going to the doctor, Max and his stress, especially about his brother, the doctor and her being interested in the brother?
8. Brooks, his reputation, Max and his envy, the stories from childhood, Brooks always winning, success? Living in luxury? His arrival, Gary watching, Brooks being loud, giving everything away, the invitation to his house for game night?
9. Gary, the police, always with his dog, separated from Debbie, his home, full of mementos to her?
10. Going to Brooks’s house, the game night, the plan, the company organising the mystery? The FBI agent, his being knocked out? The second group of thugs, abducting Brooks? Everyone believing that this was real?
11. The different responses, Max and Annie, getting in the car, following Brooks? Ryan and Sarah, her deciding to contact the company, go to the office, finding the organiser with the wound in her head? Kevin and Michelle, searching in the office, their being trapped, getting out?
12. Idiosyncrasies of the characters? Kevin and Michelle, the truth or dare, Michel having an affair, Kevin obsessed, pursuing this throughout the film? Michelle telling to 3 the story, thinking that she had met Denzel Washington? Showing the photo and its not being Denzel? Ryan, the male equivalent of the dumb blonde, his ineptness, always saying the wrong thing? The girls, all being same, vanity, slow? Sarah, Irish, more intelligent? Different?
13. Max and Annie at the bar, and in the gun, believing that they were solving the case, Max being shot, the consequences for Annie tending the wound, buying the stuff at the supermarket, getting the bullet out – and its having gone right through? His later being stabbed in the wound?
14. Max and Annie, getting the thugs on the ground – and the irony that they were later revealed as actors? Later the reverse? The Bulgarian, his wanting the egg?
15. Getting the information about false identities? Them all going to Gary, his welcome, the game, Max going into his room, getting the computer, finding out the true identities? His blood dripping on the floor, on the dog, the dog spurting it all over the mementos of Debbie?
16. Going to David Alderton’s house, the basement, fight club, Ryan and his getting enthusiastic about the fights? The others searching throughout the house? The safe, the egg in the safe, Ryan taking it, the chase, everybody throwing it to one another, in the car, the sudden breaking of the egg, finding the secret list inside?
17. The Bulgarian, the rendezvous of the bridge? Going to the plane, Max and Annie in Brooks’s red car which Max coveted, the airport, crashing into the plane, Max dropping into the plane, the confrontation, the gangster going into the engine? Annie and her dropping in and saving the day?
18. Gary, the revelation that he had arranged the overall Gary, the actors, the blood capsule? Their gratitude towards him?
19. The truth about Brooks, fake, his deals, the police, his confession to Max and the truth about their childhood, the keys to his car, his arrest?
20. Months later, the games, friends, Annie being pregnant?
21. The amusing postscript after the credits with Debbie and the not-Denzel?
