'Game Night' - Review

★ ★ ★ ½ ☆

Hanging amiably in the balance between Paul Feig and Edgar Wright, this action comedy from the team behind Horrible Bosses (directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein) delivers on its premise with panache and laugh-a-minute gags. Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams play Max and Annie, a couple who hold regular ‘game nights’ with their friends, all-the-while spurning the self-invitations of creepy cop neighbour, Gary (Jesse Plemons, gurning to perfection). When Max’s brother, Brooks (Kyle Chandler), all fast cars and fancy houses with the mannerisms of a movie trailer narrator appears, Max’s masculinity and sperm mobility (he and Annie are trying in vain for a baby) are threatened. In what seems another effort to outshine his younger brother, Brooks devises his own game night, inviting Max, Annie and their four friends (Lamorne Morris and Kylie Bunbury as a bickering couple, plus Billy Magnussen as Max’s inept pal, who brings along his date, played by Catastrophe’s Sharon Horgan). His promise of a hyperreal, Taken-style scenario goes horribly awry when it appears that an actual kidnapping takes place before the assembled yuppies’ very eyes.

What follows is a surprisingly inventive and raucous affair, as the three couples are left to decipher clues left behind by the kidnappers and fix their various scuffles. Bateman (at his deadpan best) and McAdam’s (on gleefully over-excitable form) adventure includes some light poking fun at performative masculinity and the usual non-committal dithering of a soon-to-be father, while Morris and Bunbury work through their characters’ past lapses in marital loyalty. Magnussen and Horgan are the purely comical duo: he’s an idiot showing her off as proof he can date someone smarter than his usual Instagram-obsessed former lovers, and she’s having none of it. Sliding smarmily in from the side-lines is Plemons, who barely has to shift a facial muscle to elicit snickering.

Mark Perez’ script draws out the best his cast have to offer and skimps on the off-the-cuff stylings that have regrettably become the standard in big screen American comedy. Torturously prolonged improv displays are largely dropped or at least cut short in favour of proper, scripted setups and payoffs that arrive in clever physical gags (the BBFC warning for ‘injury detail’ has never been lived up to with such hilarity), perfectly-pitched awkward interplay and acerbic quips that provide everything from a wry grin to full-on belly laughs. Ensure any food or drink items are a safe distance away during an extended joke involving the contents of Magnussen’s wallet and an all-too-brief appearance by Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s Chelsea Peretti.

That the film provides a steady stream of laughter is no mean feat, but is even more impressive when wedded effectively to formal ability. Variations of colour-grading, lighting techniques and camera movements in a movie of this type are so rare that even basic displays of technical prowess are a welcome surprise, not to mention CG-free car chases and even a ‘one-take’ fight sequence through a manor house. Sure, it’s no Atomic Blonde staircase brawl, but - along with a neat tilt-shift effect during establishing shots which transform the city streets and parking lots into game boards - it all adds up to a refreshing attempt at a visual identity that comedies rarely bother, let alone strive for in earnest. Composer Cliff Martinez (Drive) is even drafted in to provide a skippy synth score to further swell the film’s slick action credentials.

Said manor house set piece towards the climax is one spot where the overblown game threatens to become more bored than board, and the plot threads begin to pull together with an all-too-familiar sense that we’ve played this one before (gee, I wonder if Max will emerge less threatened by his brother after all?). You’ll forgive - and likely forget - these minor crimes: sheer volume of laughter makes a very convincing ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card.