Review – Game Night

A game night will bring your favorite people together to eat, drink, and play a number of different games.  It is an activity that isn’t about the games at hand, but more about spending time with the friends you care about.  That is exactly what Game Night is.  It is a movie who’s central plot is fun, with a number of different genres and stories thrown in, but a film that focuses on the people in it and gives them all a their due.

Max (Jason Bateman) and Annie (Rachel McAdams) are a wildly competitive couple who host game night at their house every week with a group of their friends Kevin (Lamorne Morris), Michelle (Kylie Bunbury), Ryan (Billy Magnusson), and whatever girl Ryan decides to bring along.  When Max’s brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler) comes into to town, he decides to host game night.  What starts as a kidnapping game turns into an actual kidnapping of Brooks and it is up to Max, Annie, and the rest of the group to save Brooks.

The plot of the movie is a fun one and one that could have easily gotten too wild that it would have thrown the movie off the rails.  But director’s John Francis Daley and Jonathon Goldstein make sure to keep this tight and within the realm of believability for this movie.  The movie plays as a comedy and a kidnapping thriller and it is a perfect blend of both genres, as we get scenes of great comedy and scenes of great action and intensity.  They don’t throw in inappropriate sex jokes or overdue the scenes of violence.  Everything here is done smartly and done to just the right degree that it is never over the top.

The biggest reason why this movie works is because of the movie’s characters.  Every character has a story.  Some of the characters, like Max and Annie, have bigger stories, like them trying to conceive a child or Max’s relationship with Brooks.  But the rest of the characters have smaller ones, like Gary (Jesse Plemons), Max and Annie’s neighbor who never gets invited to game night because he’s a bit weird or the bickering fight between Kevin and Michelle about the celebrity Michelle slept with.  We get to know every character and want them to get of this situation unscathed.  There is even some sympathy towards Brooks, who ends up not being who we really think he is.  This is a great group of people that I would want to hang out with if they were real.

Of course, the great characters don’t come to life without a great cast.  Bateman and McAdams are a wonderful couple.  They are funny, charming, and great and conveying the competitive spirit of Max and Amy.  I love both of these actors and they are both great here.  All the supporting characters offer up plenty of laughs, particularly Magnussen and Morris.  And Jesse Plemons, who’s star continues to rise, is a scene-stealer as Gary.  His line delivery, mannerisms, and awkward creepiness is so perfect.  Every time Plemons was on screen, I loved him.  Plemons doesn’t dabble too much into comedy, but with a performance like this, it just shows how great of a young actor Plemons really is.

Game Night is a ball.  Led by a great cast and merging two genres perfectly, this is a movie that will slap a smile on your face from the opening credits and won’t leave until the credits.  Much like Max and Annie have their game night every week, I would watch Game Night every week.  It’s that much fun!

Did you see Game Night?  What did you think?  Comment below or hit me up on Twitter and Instagram, @kevflix, or on Facebook by searching Kevflix.