Game Night is a comedy film about a couple, Max (Jason Bateman) and
Annie (Rachel McAdams), who has been brought together by their competitiveness
and fondness for games. Once a week,
they host a couples’ game night with their friends. However, one night, Max’s more successful and
obnoxious brother, Brooks (Kyle Chandler), at his insistence, holds the weekly
gathering at his place in which he arranges an interactive role-playing mystery
game, complete with hired actors as FBI agents and kidnappers. The prize for the winning couple? A Corvette Stingray. After Brooks is abducted by masked thugs, the
friends earnestly set off to solve the case.
However, the night takes a wild, chaotic turn when they start to realize
that the game may no longer be what they think it is.
When I saw the trailer for this
movie, I thought that it was going to be a comedy version of The Game, the 1997 mystery thriller film
starring Michael Douglas. To confirm whether
this initial perception of mine is correct or not is to somewhat spoil the
movie, so I won’t. But this can be said:
it does have some fun twists and turns.
This is a generally funny
movie. It sometimes gets dark with its humor, but
it never allows itself to become stupid or coarse.
Thus, most of the jokes land.
But aside from the adequately sharp
comedy, the script itself is reasonably clever.
The narrative contains wit, heart, ample thrills, and smart references
to itself.
The comedic performances from the cast are solid. But the
stand out for me – not necessarily because he’s the best actor, but because he
comes off as a surprise – is Billy Magnussen.
When I first noticed this actor in Birth of the Dragon (I say “noticed” instead of “see” because, checking his
filmography, I definitely had seen him before in other movies but just didn’t
remember. Or realize. Or care), I thought he lacked any charisma. But here, he surprisingly played the “shallow
dimwit”-type character to perfection.
As a result of all these, Game Night works as an ideal comedy movie
to simply lie back to and have a good time with. That said, I definitely would have enjoyed
this movie more if the trailer hadn’t given away a couple of its best bits and
twists.
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