I confess that I was waiting for such a movie for quite a while. It’s so long since I have seen a comedy that made me laugh without being stupid, with characters I could care about without falling into melodrama, with a story interesting to follow and no super-persons involved. “Game Night” written by Mark Perez and directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein succeeds to be all these and made me spend some of the most pleasant couple of hours in a cinema theater recently.
source http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2704998
The characters of the story are quite recognizable for many of the viewers. They are young mid-class professionals in today’s America, whose lives is centered around the hobby of playing all kinds of rather innocent society games. Never falling on the bad side of vice, the gaming passion defines their way of life with funny moments – like proposing marriage in riddles – or doubtful impact when concerning their decision or even capability of bringing children to life. When games and real life become entangled and the game in game situation turns to be more real than realistic the characters become involved in a turmoil of events where physical integrity and even lives are at risk, and viewers become part of the game. Same as the heroes on screen we know that the bullets cannot hurt (too much) the good guys and the blood spilled by them is just ketchup. The script authors just added one layer between fiction and reality, and this layer turns the film into a combination of surrealistic action movie and situation comedy gags – a few of them novel enough to extract some extra laughs.
(video source Zero Media)
The excellent cast feels good on screen and you can feel that they had fun making this movie. A special note should be given to the lead actors Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams who add personal chemistry to their comic talents, and to Jesse Plemons, a young comedian who constructs the role of a nerd cop with a soul in manner that lets me expect some more fun from him in the future.
If you look for good entertainment where neither the characters not the viewers are considered stupid – “Game Night“ should be the choice.