Geek Review: Game Night

Many adults like a good game night. But sometimes, those things can take a dark turn…

Max (Jason Bateman) and Annie (Rachel McAdams) are a hyper-competitive married couple who love games. They host a weekly game night with their friends while trying to have a baby. Things take a turn for the worst (for Max mostly) when Max’s older brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler, perfectly channeling the sort of asshole that would drive anyone insane) brings the game night to his house where a fake kidnapping turns into an actual real one involving dangerous criminals. With the group of average suburbanites thrust into a dangerous criminal conspiracy, what will they do now?

This was a fun movie. Bateman puts out a new movie with himself as a harried everyman every few months by now, but McAdams brings a truly winning screen presence to the proceedings. Chandler is the sort of character that is easy to hate without being the villain. The other couples involved have fun storylines. But the best comedic presence came from Jesse Plemons as a monotone, heartbroken cop living next door to Max and Annie. Plemons manages to, through sheer inflection, make his every line funny, many of which probably weren’t all that funny on paper. Factor in the movie acts as something of an all-purpose parody of David Fincher movies, and, well, it’s fun for grown-ups without being a bunch of sex jokes or body humor, Eight out of ten messy dogs.