A star is born
Rachel McAdams and Jason Bateman are Annie and Max, a couple who bonded over a shared love of games, and now host regular game nights with their friends. Kyle Chandler is Max’s half- wit brother. Billy Magnussen is their half- wit friend, because such characters should always come in pairs.
But the revelation in this cast is Jesse Plemons, their next- door neighbour, a divorced cop they’ve stopped inviting over because his ex- wife was their real friend. He is ungainly and pathetic — awkward with a capital “awww” — and he sells that every moment he’s on the screen. From the rest of them I already expect great things, and they deliver. After this, and his supporting parts in last year’s The Post and Hostiles, I think Plemons might be the most versatile and underrated actor working today.
Chandler’s character sets up a game night extraordinaire; a spare- noexpenses murder- mystery evening in which one of the players will be kidnapped. But ( and you knew this), real kidnappers show up instead, and drag the host away while everyone else marvels at how realistic it all seems.
Eventually, Annie and Max and the rest of them figure out the truth, and so the game night turns into a real night of brinksmanship involving guns, cars and a MacGuffin in the form of a jeweled egg. Co- directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley ( Vacation, the upcoming superhero movie Flashpoint), handle the sprawling cast with aplomb, splitting them up for a while and bringing them back together for the comic climax.
And there’s real chemistry at play, whether it’s Lamorne Morris and Kylie Bunbury bickering over a onenight stand she might have had with an unnamed celebrity, or Sharon Horgan as Magnussen’s too- smartforhim date. At one point she apologizes
for him — “He believes everything he reads” — and his response is to take is as a compliment: “Thanks!” There are some nice supporting turns as well from Jeffrey Wright, Danny Huston and Michael C. Hall.
All of which makes Game Night a pretty decent metaphor for a game night. It keeps an eye on the timer, coming in at a trim 100 minutes. It doesn’t play its Get Out of Jail Free card too early. And while it mostly follows the rules, it also includes some deviations you won’t see coming; imagine if a game of Clue ended with the revelation that the culprit was the Scottie dog in the Risk territory of Kamchatka, with a Trivial Pursuit pie slice. Checkmate!