Film review: Game Night

My favourite thing about these reviews isn’t watching things I’ve heard are very good, but really I enjoy finding something that has gone a little bit under the radar (at least from my perspective) and bringing it to light for other people to indulge in, especially so with film because a film is an evenings activity, not a commitment for the next fortnight. I pushed Netflix aside tonight and browsed Amazon Prime, lots of big names came up, but I stopped on ‘Game Night’, the plot looked very interesting and I’m a fan of Jason Bateman. Whether I’ve made this clear from the intro I don’t know, but this film was a bundle of fun and reinforced my faith in finding random films.

The first act, where the characters were assembling and the plot was being established was an intriguing one, I suspected that the plot would actually be a great one, despite it being of a comedy subgenre. The chemistry between the friends was especially good, it felt more natural than many groups of seen in film or television, but especially the case in the couple. Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams as Max and Annie were something special in this film, especially so if this is their first film playing co-stars. They seemed to depict a real couple very well, a classic duo of quirks, insecurities and nuances between them.

Onto the comedy, which was the best part of this film. Please, please show me more comedies where they make jokes at the frequency that they do in this film! There’s a fine line between something that tries to blag a laugh far too often, and something that you wouldn’t quite classify as a comedy through lack of them. I’d say I genuinely laughed inside (who actually laughs watching a film alone) at almost half the jokes, where most of the time I pay attention to maybe a quarter. The mix of situations, bizarre twists and scenarios, and just flat out goofs made for a genuinely unique and fun film to watch.

I say fun because the film wasn’t too ambitious, I’ll watch many that go to a place far more advanced than this film, but for what it was, not too many have done the job better in my opinion. ‘Game Night’ is dark humour without overdoing slurs or flagrantly stepping on toes. I’d probably call it the perfect family film for audiences that reach the age requirement and for families that don’t tend to cringe at slightly risqué humour.

Rating: 8/10