what a stupid movie!”
Actually this comment was not mine—although I echo it completely.
It came from the luscious lips of my breathtakingly beautiful wife, Mrs. Cris Evert Lato-Ruffolo as we shared a rare“ date night,” away from our three young children and took in a preview showing of “Game Night.”
The premise of “Game Night,” a future placeholder of Cebu Daily News’ yearend review of the worst movies of 2018, is pretty basic: Married and very unhappy couples (because they cannot conceive a child), are led by the ever stalwart Max (Jason Bateman from Netflix’s “Ozark”) and his pretty wife Annie (Rachel McAdams from “Dr. Strange”) meet each week to get drunk, play an array of board games and charades to whittle time away from their despondent lives.
If suburbia in America is truly like this, heaven help the USA!
Add to this mix a dysfunctional divorced police officer (he lives next door) that—after repeated attempts at joining in on “Game Night”—conducts a wild scheme to convince Max, Annie and four other wackos that Max’s uber rich brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler) has a team of killers after him and the entire troupe is pulled into a series of madcap adventures that rival The Three Stooges.
Written for the screen by Mark Perez, who should be holding off on his acceptance speech for an Academy Award next year, as “Game Night” is a quasi-rip off of 1997’s “The Game” in which Michael Douglas goes through a similar series of incredible adventures–all on one night–that break him down physically and mentally until he finally succumbs to a “fate worse than death.”
Douglas’ “Game Night” also happens to take place on his birthday in which his life is turned upside down and inside out.
The same happens here in “Game Night” with directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein concocting this mess and it shows.
Our couples descend into numerous mishaps: Annie accidently shoots Max in his left arm (the gun was supposed to be filled with blanks) which then morphs into a series of ongoing gags about cleaning the wound with champagne.
The other running “ha ha” is about another childless couple–Kevin (Lamore Morris) and Michelle (Kylie Bunbury)–and her solo one night stand with a stranger she thought was actor Denzel Washington but do we really care that she slept with someone other than Kevin?
Ah … no.
“Game Night” could have been much more than a series of running gags that go on and on. It was supposed to be funny and I must admit that I broke into a grin twice—the second coming when one of the bad guys makes a flirty comment about Annie seconds before he gets sucked into an aircraft engine and gets chopped up into hamburger.
After the first 10 minutes, Cris had zero interest in “Game Night” and spent the rest of the film chatting away with someone on her Facebook page.
I could have kicked myself for not bringing along my smartphone along so I could have just read the news.
But then again, I am supposed to reviewing this film.
Ugg!
There are many ways to forget about your troubles and relieve the stress that many couples face when they are trying to conceive a child.
Specifically the pressure is all on Max to meet his “husbandly duties” and we are told time and time again, what a failure he is.
Perhaps he could get into shape by taking up long distance cycling or try some meditating?
Instead “Game Night” is peppered throughout about Max’s sexual feebleness to produce a child with Annie; clearly they love each other and beam whenever they are on the screen.
But it doesn’t make for a good comedy and throwing in major plot elements from “The Game” and running gun battles with faux criminals doesn’t help.
In case you’re curious, “Game Night” was filmed in Marietta, Georgia.
Why Georgia?
Because this state lavishes huge tax breaks and incentives on film crews like this one who produced “Game Night” and other companies who create
programming such as TV’s “The Walking Dead”—to move their production there.
Why or why didn’t they throw some money our way so Cris and I didn’t have to wade through this 100 minute dreg … I’ll never know!
Questions, comments or travel suggestions, write me at [email protected].
