GAME NIGHT
Sarah (Sharon Horgan) joins the group. Also included are the funloving Kevin (Lamorne Morris) and Michelle (Kylie Bunbury).
The biggest challenge for Annie and Max is keeping the game night secret from their creepy cop neighbor, Gary (Jesse Plemons), who seems like the type of guy who would turn Chutes and Ladders into Shoots and Ladders.
Causing the biggest disruption is Max’s more successful, better-looking, richer, smarter and more popular brother, Brooks (Kyle Chandler). The two have competed since childhood, with Brooks way ahead in the scoring.
On a rare visit to town, Brooks takes advantage of the control he has over his brother to get game night shifted to his house, where he changes the rules.
Brooks has put in play a kidnapping mystery: The first one to find him wins a fabulous prize.
Before the fake kidnapping can begin, however, Brooks is grabbed by real thugs. 1:33 at the Columbus 10 at Westpointe, Crosswoods, Dublin Village 18, Easton 30, Georgesville Square 16, Grove City 14, Lennox 24, Movies 12 at Carriage Place, Movies 16 Gahanna, Pickerington, Polaris 18 and River Valley theaters To save him, the players must break multiple laws and risk their lives — all by midnight.
The first part of “Game Night” has some fun moments, largely thanks to McAdams. Annie doesn’t take losing lightly, so the real-life criminal acts give her a rush.
She nicely balances Bateman, who, as the quiet calculator, tends to measure the odds before acting. Annie is a person of action; he’s more inclined toward reaction.
The four other players aren’t developed much; they simply serve as pawns in the game.
Screenwriter Mark Perez — whose credits include the wreck "Herbie Fully Loaded" — throws in a few twists but could have used more, especially with the supporting players. The storylines for the bit players remain far too linear, preventing the mystery from being more interesting.
The biggest blunder by Perez: the approach. Like countless TV shows and films before it, "Game Night" suddenly forces average people to do extraordinary things — and they do it. Even the most basic logical thinking must be rejected, or the film falls apart in the first act.
Perez should have worked harder to incorporate the skills that the friends have cultivated in all of their game nights. There’s a touch of charades, but the crime solving in the movie should have included many more of the tactics used in playing board and parlor games.
It's possible for average people to do great things but not when it appears that they were trained CIA operatives just waiting for a game night to go badly.
The direction by John Francis Daley (“Vacation”) and Jonathan M. Goldstein (“Vacation”) is pedestrian, except for the computer graphics used to make many of the locations resemble game boards. That element provides a spark but never ignites anything else original.
When a script starts to unravel, the actors have to pick up the slack. McAdams gives it her best shot, and she gets help from Plemons and Chandler.
Plemons' character is so weird that he wouldn’t be invited to game night at the home of Hannibal Lecter. Chandler's screen time is more limited than other players', but he still manages to make Brooks interesting.
"Game Night" is akin to playing Monopoly with, say, only the four railroad properties. Without more elements, the result is far less enjoyable than it could be.