Game Night Review

Game Night was directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein and stars Jason Bateman along side Rachael McAdams as an eccentric couple, Max and Annie, who host a weekly game night with their close friends. When Max's brother arranges a murder mystery party - complete with fake thugs and federal agents - goes wrong all participants of the game night think it's just apart of the game, but soon find out the kidnapping and crimes associated with the game are real. This leads the group of friends into uncharted territory as they attempt to solve the real world crimes happening.  Game Night is an exceptionally funny and creative movie that had the audience in my theater laughing the entire duration of the film. The vision created by Daley and Goldstein was something that really showed strong in Game Night, after their lousy paring with the remake of Vacation I was a little hesitant to engage this film fully. This directing duo did prove me wrong, in the best way possible.

Game Night was a breath of fresh air in the comedic genre. I am a firm believer that comedies are the hardest movies to direct. Comedy is subjective and that leads to a lot of discussion over what actually is considered to be humorous. Two very common types of comedy you will see are either Slapstick or Dry comedy. There are plenty other types of comedic films but for the most part this is the dividing line. Some find Slapstick humor like Spaceballs or Ace Ventura: Pet Detective to be their bread and butter. While others might find dry humor like Shaun of the Dead or The Big Lebowski to be what they enjoy. Daley and Goldstein attempted to be very careful not to fall too far in one way or the other. I could tell that they were very careful and took their time crafting the jokes on screen. While a large part of it was improvised, it was done in a way that still had structure to it. The big slapstick moments were built up with smaller dry comedic moments. Game Night did have big jokes that didn't land with me but it had the substance of dry and consistent humor throughout the film that did provide quite a bit of entertainment. The comedy in this movie was consistent throughout with telling the same jokes in creative and new ways. The improvisation of the actors was very important as each character almost provided a different sense and style of humor. The success of this widely relied on the the actors ability to work together as a lot of jokes were built through conversations between the characters. Game Night had me laughing out loud and often. Daley and Goldstein redeemed themselves greatly in the realm of comedy, and I am honestly looking forward to what they are going to be doing next.

As for the technical side of things, I was very impressed. Namely in the spacial awareness brought to the screen. With every form of action scene it was never shot in a disorienting way. The use of wide shots helped deliver on coherent car chases, shootouts as well as a pretty fun fight scene. However, I was most impressed with the transitions in this movie. Transitioning from scene to scene often goes unnoticed. If you take time to think about transitions in a movie it's almost hard to do, most of them are not memorable. Game Night was not the same. I was really impressed with the establishing shots used to set up a scene. Daley and Goldstein utilized a very cool style of photography called 'tilt shift' photography. Tilt shift photography allows for photos of real people or places to appear as if though they are miniature and almost toy like. Using this style helped sell the them of 'game night'. I was very impressed with the technical aspect of this film.

Game Night was not a perfect film by any means. In fact, there was quite a bit I did have an issue with. Namely the pacing of this film. Game Night often had a very inconsistent pace. The first two acts seemed to fly by - while the 3rd act did not. I think a lot of this is due to the writing that took place. They attempted to chase after a story element that proved to be successful once but was not successful over all. The other major issue I had was the lack of originality from the main lead actor, Jason Bateman. Now, I enjoyed his character quite a bit and I thought Jason Bateman was very funny in this movie. However, Jason played the same character he does in almost every film I have seen him in and Game Night was no exception. Because of this it took the performance down and didn't allow for some jokes to hit as hard because as an audience member and fan of Bateman's work, I have just hear all of them before.

Overall, I greatly appreciated Game Night. Baley and Goldstein helped deliver a truly entertaining and fun movie to watch. It is a film that truly does have everything for anyone who chooses to watch this movie. From the belly laughing comedy to the wonderful cinematic direction Game Night delivered on a lot of fronts. You will notice some small pacing issues throughout the film that are magnified in the 3rd act and if you're a fan of Jason Bateman, get ready to see the exact same character as before. I recommend going to see Game Night in theaters. I am going to give Game Night a B+.