Game Night

Release Date: February 23, 2018
Runtime: 100 minutes
Rating: R
Studio: New Line Cinema / Warner Bros.
Director: John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein
Cast: Jason Bateman; Rachel McAdams; Kyle Chandler; Lamorne Morris; Kylie Bunbury; Billy Magnussen; Sharon Horgan; Jesse Plemons

Every now and then a movie comes along that requires nothing more from an audience than a willingness to have fun. Not much substance, not much concentration necessary. Some might call this type of film “fluff” and say things like “check your brain at the door.” To this, I say, “So what?!?!” Not every piece of cinema that is released throughout the year needs to have a deep meaning. Sometimes, it’s just entertainment.

“Game Night” is one much movie. This is a fun one! The setup is easy: Max (Jason Bateman) and Annie (Rachel McAdams) are a young married couple with a shared love of games: party games like charades, trivia, etc. (they even meet-cute at a pub’s game night in an early flashback). Over the years, they have cultivated a tradition with their best friends Kevin (Lamorne Morris), Michelle (Kylie Bunbury), and Ryan (Billy Magnussen) to hold weekly game nights at their suburban home (Ryan’s flavor-of-the-week, Sarah (Sharon Horgan), joins this time around). Part of the tradition unfortunately (but hilariously) includes fending off the creepy neediness of next-door neighbor, Gary (Jesse Plemons), whose one goal in life seems to be to get invited to one of Max and Annie’s game nights. On one particular game night, the group is joined by Max’s older brother, Brooks (the hunky Kyle Chandler), who has arranged for one of those “real” games in which someone gets kidnapped by a group of actors and the others have to try and figure out where he or she is being held. Is the ensuing madness real or is it just a game?

The irresistibility of “Game Night” can be mostly attributed to the fact that all of the players are so damn likeable. Bateman, McAdams, Morris, Bunbury, Magnussen, and Horgan all appear to be having an absolute blast in the film and not one of them has a mean-spirited bone in their body. Each of the actors plays off the others nicely, with each couple (Bateman/McAdams, Morris/Bunbury, Magnussen/Horgan) given multiple opportunities to shine in one wacky scene after another. One particularly bravura sequence sees the six of them attempting to steal a Fabergé egg from a gangster’s mansion in a brilliantly choreographed one-take (I think) that follows all of them as they scurry throughout the house. The directing team of Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (the Ryan Reynolds “Vacation,” two-thirds of the screenwriters of “Horrible Bosses”) and screenwriter Mark Perez (“The Country Bears,” “Accepted”) give the audience a very amusing couple of hours sans sappiness or any lessons to be learned, while still providing the feel-good Hollywood ending. Perez’s script is hilarious and includes a couple of laugh-out-loud set pieces that flow from the circumstance and don’t feel contrived in order to set up a joke.

Listen, this is not a perfect movie: there are a couple of technical glitches that stood out (one particularly egregious jump cut that made me roll my eyes during my screening). But overall, “Game Night” is an enormously entertaining, funny, light-hearted piece of fluff performed by extremely likeable personalities in a fast-paced production. See it if you’re looking for a good time!