Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley are the writers of Spider-Man: Homecoming. They return to directing with Game Night, a calibrated but entertaining American comedy starring Jason Bateman, Kyle Chandler and Rachel McAdams. The film offers some cheerful valves and a relatively funny situation: a life-size role-playing game.
A nice concept for a classic final rendering
The basic idea is rather funny: a life-size role-playing game. Chandler's character gets kidnapped, but what is supposed to be a game is actually reality. Game Night will try to play with this gap between game and reality with deliberately crude twists, in any case gruff. The two filmmakers have fun caricaturing the features of reversals of situations. The hero, embodied by Jason Bateman does not hesitate to emphasize it: stop with the reversals of situations. Game / reality reality / game, we do not know where we are. It's simple imagine the synopsis of The Game, David Fincher's classic, declined in comedy.
Unfortunately Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley will prefer to branch off into a pseudo thriller/investigative thriller, which turns to the action movie, rather than keeping their guideline. The duo between Bateman and McAdams holds the road and allows a beautiful chemistry on screen. As well as Kyle Chandler, very funny in small flamboyant strike.
A lack of risk-taking
So Game Night offers some enjoyable comic moments, especially when Bateman literally destroys the room of Jesse Plemons' character, a rigid and hilarious cop. This kind of scenes, quite rare, allow to give a real rhythm to the feature film. This protagonist is one of the strong points: a perfectly written secondary character, which allows a real break in tone. A comic calm that creates a real gap compared to the frenzied rhythm of the film. The finale with the arrival of Michael C Hall is of a disappointing classicism and concludes this classic but effective comedy.
A sympathetic, lively and rhythmic comedy, which offers some beautiful verbal jousts for lack of great originality in situations. The too wise realization does not really allow the film to get out of the usual shackles of the genre, despite some rare visual ideas (including the rotation of the lock). But the cast full of self-mockery offers enough thickness to the film, which chains twists with derision.
