Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams star in the hilarious
action-comedy “Game Night,” as sweetly devoted, charmingly competitive married
couple Max and Annie. The pair delight in hosting game nights for their friends
(Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris, and
Kylie Bunbury), inviting the couples over for a light-hearted evening of wine
and a few rounds of Monopoly or charades.
It’s all in
good fun until Max’s annoyingly successful brother (Kyle Chandler) comes to
visit and proposes that the group raise the stakes, announcing that he’s hired
a company to stage an elaborate kidnapping mystery that each couple will
attempt to solve. But when the group unexpectedly find themselves in the midst
of a real-life kidnapping, they’re suddenly in real danger and wildly in over
their heads.
Writer Mark
Perez’s tightly-structured script (what a treat it is to finally get a film
that bucks the trend of improv-heavy humor that most
modern comedies have come to favor) delivers memorable characters, outrageous
situations, and manages to find time for everyone in the talented ensemble to
get their moment to shine. Making a welcome return to comedy, Rachel McAdams is
endlessly charming, but the true standout is Jesse Plemons,
who delivers an award-worthy turn as Max and Annie’s creepy police officer
neighbor, bitter over having been uninvited to the group hangout following his
divorce.
Directing
duo John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein lend the film a smart visual
style, aping the aesthetic of a straightforward crime-thriller, with the
situations tweaked for laughs over suspense. After a number of disappointing
efforts (the less said about “Vacation” the better), the pair seem to have
found their groove with the winning “Game Night,” making it one of the funnier
and more entertaining mainstream comedies in recent memory.
This article appears in Feb 28 – Mar 6, 2018.
