Game Night (2018) - Party hardy - 7/10 (07/03/18)

Game Night is an entertaining ride but nothing truly memorable that needs to be revisited. It's an over-the-top comedy movie with a healthy dose of action and suspense. The story revolves around competitive gamers Annie and Max who recently got married and who organize game nights with their friends. After having been out of town for a whole year, Max's brother Brooks attends one of their game nights and offers to organize the next one himself. The couple reluctantly agrees because they feel Brooks simply wants to show off and humiliate his brother but they still want to give him a chance. On the next game night, Brooks announces that he has organized an interactive role-play game and that one of them is going to be kidnapped and that the others have to find that person. The price for the potential winner is a vintage car that Max really wants to get. Some time after, masked intruders get inside Brooks' house, beat him up and kidnap him. However, Annie and Max soon realize that things didn't go as planned and that Brooks was actually kidnapped for real. Along with two other couples and their strange police neighbor, Annie and Max try to save Brooks and uncover the mysteries behind the kidnapping.

Game Night has several things going for it. First of all, the plot is quite quirky and offers a lot of situation comedy, a solid dose of action and tension and a series of twists in the final third that are often predictable but still well-executed. Secondly, the movie has a great pace, spending only as much time as necessary to introduce all characters and settings before the final hour quickens up the pace and never slows down again. Thirdly, some of the characters have depth and are sympathetic which is the case for Max who has intense competitive struggles with his brother, his smart and tough wife Annie, his dishonest but repentant brother Brooks and the mentally unstable neighbor Gary whose beloved wife recently left him. Finally, some of the situation comedy is truly funny and memorable and especially the dramatic final twenty minutes are perfectly executed.

On the other side, Game Night also has some weaknesses. First of all, it's at times too exaggerated, for example when three twists building upon one another are revealed in a short period of time. That isn't confusing or funny anymore but simply lazy script writing at that point. Another problem is the fact that while the main characters are interesting, the side characters are extremely shallow. There is a black couple who argues about how the wife has slept with a celebrity. That's literally all you need to know about them and everything they discuss throughout one and a half hours. There is another couple consisting of a good-looking but extremely dumb guy and his more intellectual partner whose only character trait is that she is British. The fact that they don't have any chemistry leads to a few awkward laughs in the beginning but becomes seriously annoying throughout the entire movie. Another element I disliked were the boring and predictable moral lessons in the movie's more serious scenes towards the end. Protect your family, stand by your friends and live an honest life. I almost fell asleep.

To keep it short, Game Night is an entertaining ride with lots of humor, a solid dose of action and even an appropriate addition of tension. Instead of watching this film at the cinema, you should rent it and watch it with your friends at home. While the movie is great to watch once, it's nothing memorable that needs to be revisited again. There are similar recent party movies like the brilliant Happy Death Day that are much more original. This movie actually is like a party. It's fun while it lasts but the next day you just want to move on.