Game Night
(2018)Friends who meet for game nights find themselves solving a murder mystery in this comedy from the directors of Vacation, starring Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams.... More
Max and Annie's weekly couples' game night gets kicked up a notch when Max’s charismatic brother, Brooks (Kyle Chandler, Manchester by the Sea), arranges a murder mystery party, complete with fake thugs and faux federal agents. So when Brooks gets kidnapped, it’s all part of the game… right? But as the six uber-competitive gamers set out to solve the case and win, they discover that neither this “game” — nor Brooks — are what they seem to be. Over the course of one chaotic night, the friends find themselves increasingly in over their heads as each twist leads to another unexpected turn.Hide
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Directed by John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein ('Vacation')
Starring Rachel McAdams, Jason Bateman, Kyle Chandler, Jesse Plemons, Jeffrey Wright, Billy Magnussen, Lamorne Morris, Sharon Horgan, Kylie Bunbury, Chelsea Peretti
Written by Mark Perez
Out Now (On-Demand,
DVD or Blu-Ray)
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Game Night
BY Mike-Patterson superstar
Entertaining enough but feels like the same old Jason Bateman movie with a different cast
BY OscarSM superstar
BY Alissa-Warren superstar
I knew what I was getting coming in and it doesn't disappoint, if anything it was better than I expected. Oh.. but a whole bucket load of crazy. These are the type of films you have to review straight away as the particulars are hazy at best weeks later. But it was fun and truly insane and just what i ordered.
BY Fallon24 lister
BY JackWallace superstar
Showing 5 of 5 reviews. See all reviews
The Press Reviews
There’s a nagging speck of humanity, or at least reasonably quick and cutting marital satire, that keeps the movie afloat. Full Review
A talented cast, including Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams and Sharon Horgan, ensure that this hit-and-miss caper remains snappy, if forgettable, fun. Full Review
There are chuckles here and there, but a striking absence of belly laughs... Full Review
A smooth blend of clever sight gags and sharp dialogue delivered by an ensemble who clearly enjoy keeping up the pace. Full Review
A four-hour documentary pitting Bateman against McAdams in an epic Settlers of Catan match-up would have been significantly more interesting ... Full Review
Farce is a beast to get right in movies. The fact that Game Night hits the mark more often than it hits a wall is cause for cheering. Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams make sure its always party time. Talk about fun company. They're it. Full Review
Lumpy lowbrow humour and characters as thin as a Monopoly board mar Game Night, a comedy with an irresistible premise, but that only. Full Review
Ms. McAdams is one of cinema's most accomplished and appealing comic actresses. It's almost heartbreaking to contemplate how amazing she would be in a new comedy that was more than intermittently O.K. Full Review
BY Tony Stamp Flicks Writer
Game Night shares its directors with the execrable Vacation, which should trigger alarm bells for discerning viewers. However the same duo worked on the script for Spiderman: Homecoming, which was pretty great, and co-director John Francis Daley gets a lifetime pass just for being in Freaks and Geeks.... More
All this is by way of saying that Game Night is much better than you might expect. An attempt to marry a crime thriller with an ensemble comedy, it succeeds mainly due to a pleasantly convoluted script by Mark Perez.
There are the expected scenes of actors riffing all over each that populate most modern comedies, but also hints at a bigger budget and attention to aesthetics like nifty camera work, tilt-shift photography, and some decent action set pieces.
Jason Bateman has probably done enough of these man-child roles at this point (it’s unsettlingly weird watching his character wonder whether he’s ready to have a kid at age forty-nine), but he’s reliably amusing. So is Rachel McAdams (seemingly channeling Rose Byrne in Bad Neighbours), and there are some nice surprises in the supporting cast like Sharon Horgan from TV’s Catastrophe, and Jesse Plemons being funny enough to steal the whole movie.
Your mileage may vary when it comes to the various bits of comic business in Game Night, but a lot of seemingly-improvised non-sequiturs reveal themselves to be carefully planned setups for later gags, which is a nice change.
The suspension of disbelief needed to sell the dramatic parts of the story is undermined somewhat when characters react in a blasé fashion to, for example, being shot. But it’s that cheerful detachment from reality that makes the film such a easy watch.
Culminating in an end credits sequence that plays like Fincher in a particularly goofy mood, Game Night isn’t great, but it’s surprisingly good.Hide
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