The Trouble with finding a mate at trivia night is the exacerbated competition of libido and (Strat)ego. However, Max (Jason Bateman) and Annie (Rachel McAdams) are a Test Match made in heaven. It’s as if their competitive urges are so ingrained, they couldn’t respect one another if marriage were not sort of collaborative team event. Years later, I have no idea how their friends tolerate Game Night hosted by this Apples-to-Apples pair. Perhaps they just gather to get through this thing called Life. Sorry, Prince.
And yet, this weekly Operation run by Max and Annie is so popular they have to keep it hidden from their off-putting cop neighbor, Gary (Jesse Plemons). It doesn’t take a Mastermind to see Gary is lonely following his separation; now he prefers to ape a Bond villain, hovering about while cradling a white toy terrier, looking for a Trivial Pursuit to drown his woes. “Are you having a Game Night?” Oh, Sorry! Huh, looks like some couple has a Monopoly on fun.
Ok, I’m stopping with the board game puns. That writing style was hardly Perfection anyway.
Here’s what’s going on: Max and Annie have a weekly game night. They’re the kind of couple so into competitive gaming, it has literally become their language. Max’s estranged brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler) suddenly drops by to take over the show, insisting on hosting a “real” game night. It’s possible that Max’s entire uber-competitive personality is fueled by an inferiority complex triggered by his older brother, but this film doesn’t need us to understand psychology, just to accept that Brooks has co-opted and elevated his brother’s Game Night. And when Jeffrey Wright busts in posing as an FBI agent and hands the competing couples a dossier of felons loose in the neighborhood, well, mission accomplished.
Then the movie steps up its game – Brooks is physically attacked by two intruding thugs, who are not part of game night. And in delightful parody, six potential witnesses all “oooh” and “ahhh” while a man is beaten and kidnapped from his own home. Game Night is never going to win any awards for reality-based depictions, but the hyperbole in this film is damn funny.
In short, Brooks has set up an elaborate Game Night and at the exact same time
real thugs have come to do him in. And six party nerds join in the fun, not knowing quite what’s real. I feel like this is the kind of script that could have been both awful or terrific or both. Personally, I side with “terrific.” Game Night has several laughs, but the movie is won, hands down, by the actor who gave not a single smile. I love it when veteran actors get a break. I’ve literally blogged at least ten films that included Jesse Plemons without stating his name a single time. Sorry, dude, you’ve been background and I don’t write novels. But Plemons is awesome in this film and sets the kind of comic tone not unlike Tiffany Haddish in Girls Trip or Michael Keaton in Night Shift – i.e. an actor so in character that comedy happens regardless of what’s going on. I don’t know if Game Night will launch a new career for the extremely recessive-alleled Plemons, but I kinda hope it does. This was a fun ride, and he deserves as much credit for that as anyone else in the film. Yahtzee.
Is it a game, a heist, or a con?
A night of fun won, lost and drawn
Yet ringers are present
Making life unpleasant
It’s like chess where everybody’s a pawn
Rated R, 100 Minutes
Director: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein
Writer: Mark Perez
Genre: EyeCandyland
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Those who don’t mind a (Par)cheesi indulgence
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Reality Checkers
