You can’t hate the players when they fake the game.

Brought to you with eye-rolling unsubtlety by Tostitos® and Stella Artois™, “Game Night” invites you for a night of chips, dips and competitive quips.

Max (Jason Bateman) and Annie (Rachel McAdams) are a married couple who fell in love at first tie break. Both deeply competitive, there’s nothing they love more than hosting their friends for Game Night. But when Max’s conspicuously successful brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler) comes to town and offers to host an extra special Game Night, Max’s competitive streak goes into overdrive. But Brooks’ plans for an elaborate murder mystery take an even more sinister turn when his fake abduction is interrupted by real kidnappers.

If David Fincher made zany comedies, they’d look like “Game Night”. Co-directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein wear their inspirations on their sleeve and in addition to Fincher’s slickly kinetic camera trickery and dark, ochre-tinged colour grading there are nods to “Scream” and “Pulp Fiction” thrown in for good measure.

The cast are good value, with Jason Bateman staying on the right side of irritating (although his schtick occasionally goes on a little too long) and some of the biggest laughs come from the supporting players, especially Billy Magnussen and Sharon Horgan but everyone gets a moment or two to shine as the movie manages to land most of its punchlines. Rachel McAdams is bubbly and likeable throughout, helping ease the story over its more preposterous moments.

It does a good job, for the most part, of sticking to its concept although it eventually ties itself up in knots by attempting one or two ‘clever’ twists too many, especially for a film which wants to be this archly self-aware.

Luckily, its nippy 100 minute run time keeps things moving briskly enough that the flaws don’t drag it down too much. It’s not a classic comedy by any means, but it’s a very fun watch. There’s more than enough wit and style on show, though, to suggest that there’s method in the madness of Warner Bros’ decision to roll the dice on Daley and Goldstein for their troubled “Flashpoint” project.

game night review
Score 7/10


Hi there! If you enjoyed this post, why not sign up to get new posts sent straight to your inbox?

Sign up to receive a weekly digest of The Craggus' latest posts.

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

logo

Related posts

Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets (2017) Review

Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets (2017) Review

Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets is a ray of sci-fi sunshine Luc Besson’s Space Oddity opens with a suitably inspirational opening as the story of Alpha (the eponymous City Of A Thousand Planets) is told through an evolutionary montage which nods to both Kubrick and...

Doctor Who: The Story And The Engine

Doctor Who: The Story And The Engine

The Story and the Engine finds the Doctor for once not apart from the world, but a part of it. For a Time Lord, Doctor Who has always been somewhat beholden to its time, so the Doctor’s more exotic escapades often interpreted their destinations through a tourist lens which was often...

Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice (2016) Review

Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice (2016) Review

Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice makes a meal out of dining on ashes Okay, before we get down to business with "Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice", let’s set the record straight. Full disclosure: I’ve never been keen on this iteration is Superman. I didn’t care for “Man Of...

Fifty Shades Darker (2017) Review

Fifty Shades Darker (2017) Review

Fifty Shades Darker provides plenty of pain but very little pleasure Soulless, mechanical and delivered with a sense of resigned obligation second only to the “Divergent” franchise, “Fifty Shades Darker” skulks into cinemas with all the romance and fantasy of a discarded Mills...

Ice Age: Collision Course (2016) Review

Ice Age: Collision Course (2016) Review

Here's hoping Ice Age: Collision Course turns out to be an extinction level event There’s a tendency among long running movie series – especially those which have no business being there – to launch into outer space. And so in "Ice Age Collision Course", its fifth and conspicuously...

Boston Legal Review

Boston Legal Review

Grab yourself a scotch, light up a cigar and relax as we take a look back at Boston Legal on its 20th Anniversary. It’s been two decades since Boston Legal graced our screens, a time when television courtrooms were either deadly serious or played for melodrama, and along came a series...

Nailed It! Season Two

Nailed It! Season Two

Ya done it! Nailed It! is back for a second season. Back in 1989, Kylie Minogue released a single from “Enjoy Yourself”, her second studio album, called "Wouldn't Change A Thing". It perfectly encapsulates how I felt when I learned "Nailed It" was coming back for a second season: If I...

Space Station 76 (2014) Review

Space Station 76 (2014) Review

Welcome to the world of tomorrow…yesterday! If you’re hoping for a laugh-a-minute retro sci-fi comedy romp then “Space Station 76” is likely to disappoint. While it's certainly an affectionate pastiche of 1970’s vision of the future, the retro sci-fi trappings and space station setting...