Isn’t there anything else to do?
Subjects of a 2013 Wall Street Journal feature, the real-life friends who provoked the new comedy “Tag” are, let’s assume, decent guys, fun-loving and supportive and appreciative of having the time and money to keep the same elaborate prankster version of tag going for nearly 30 years.
But I kind of hate the movie’s mixture of bro comedy, sadistic practical jokes (don’t call it slapstick) and last-ditch pull for the heartstrings. If you like the trailer, please know the best bits are in it. If you’re not enticed by the trailer, it’s not like the movie’s better; there’s just 98 minutes more of it.
Without Hannibal Buress tipping around the edges, it’d be more grueling than “Hereditary.” The easygoing comic actor snags laughs by his lonesome, simply by providing deadpan reactions and blithe non sequiturs while others strain for effect. Without Buress, and the occasional grace notes from his best cohorts, “Tag” would constitute a grievous insult to one of the simplest, finest games known to humankind. I speak, of course, of the no-tagback variation of tag. Tagbacks are stupid, and lazy.
With one odd exception the cast is well-chosen and fully up to the challenge of making “Tag” less stupid and lazy. Once the character introductions are out of the way, hotshot insurance executive Bob (Jon Hamm), chronic stoner “Chilli” (Jake Johnson), straight-laced competitor with a secret “Hoagie” (Ed Helms) and lovelorn Kevin (Buress) convene for their annual monthlong game of tag at the wedding of the fifth and craftiest member of the circle, Jerry (Jeremy Renner).
Jerry has never been tagged in 30 years, and he’s willing to humiliate, injure and otherwise punish his friends in order to maintain his perfect score. In a typically misjudged sight gag, all pain and no comic gain, Chilli gets battering-rammed by a log.
Hoagie gets pummeled by doughnuts in slow motion. Isla Fisher, playing Hoagie’s hypercompetitive wife, stands around waiting for the bro banter to throw her a scrap or two.
As the Wall Street Journal reporter along for the ride, and the human interest story, Annabelle Wallis has even less to say, which gives her time to practice ways to catch the audience’s eye in medium shot. The editing of “Tag” chops up the simplest conversations into frenetic alums of Reaction Shot Summer Camp.
First-time feature director Jeff Tomsic bashes his way through the assignment in a style to be named later. The excellent but squandered Rashida Jones has a couple of scenes as the guys’ old acquaintance and crush. Her job here is to eye-roll at the puerile antics and then to cue the audience’s warm, fuzzy feeling about these allegedly lovable lunkheads. As for Renner, well … by design his character is the odd man out, a superhumanly gifted tagger not above commando tactics. The problem is, Renner has no light range, at least not that he’s been allowed to develop here; jokingly, other characters refer to Jerry as a psychopath, which is exactly how Renner plays him — like a cold, heartless action hero notching another casualty. There’s no kick, in other words, in watching Renner outfox his opponents.
The movie may well be a hit. But “it,” it ain’t.