“Game Night”
2018 • R • 1h 40mins
Here’s the plot. The short version, because I’ve got Big Allergy Brain this week. Partners Max (Jason Bateman) and Annie (Rachel McAdams) love games. They met through games. They still game. But Max’s human inadequacy complex of a brother, Brooks (Kyle Chandler), just took over their regular game night. When Brooks is kidnapped during the game, Max and Annie assume this is the game too. But is it? And can they figure things out in time to save Brooks? And will playing this clearly dangerous game/not-game move the two across the game board of love and back into each other’s hearts again? (Wow, yeah, I did re-read that, but I’m still going with it.)
I knew Jason Bateman from Arrested Development. He was on Silver Spoons as a kid; I didn’t see it. Lately, he’s been producing, directing and starring in Ozark (it’s great). He’s directing Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans in Project Artemis for Apple next. Originally he was going to direct this thing. Through his whole career, Bateman does what he does in Game Night. He’s guileless, but not dumb. All his motives are clear to us. But he’s smart. That’s huge for a movie that sounds as terrible on paper as this one.
But it’s not terrible. It’s very un-terrible. Chockablock with great performances too. The unnerving Billy Magnussen is a bro for the ages. Sharon Horgan. Lamorne Morris of New Girl. Scary Danny Huston. Utterly unsettling Jesse Plemons, playing on his violent persona from Breaking Bad as he melts into shadows. It’s one of those movies where the on-set culture must have been great, because everyone is fun onscreen too.
Reactions to this film at the time were, “It’s really good, but could have been great.” I think it got marked down for being about silly stuff. But if you watch it now, you see the value of its escapism-based design. Silly stuff is okay to lose yourself in for an hour and a half. Especially when it’s this good. Flicks like this get annoyingly called “smart”. Because they’re wittily written. Snappily acted. Edited with a whip-crack. All that’s true here. But this silly escapism is great because it assume you’re smart yourself. That took courage behind the camera. Films that treat their audiences with dignity are hard to find.
NOTES
The runtime is 100 minutes. So satisfying.
This made $118M against a budge of $37M. That’s a pretty great return. It opened against Annihilation—love the book, disliked the film.
I get this title mixed up with Date Night, but remember which is which because Date Night comes earlier in the alphabet and human history (2010).
The cast played Clue together before shooting to get to know each other.
Kyle Chandler and Jesse Plemons starred together in, of course, Friday Night Lights.