Game Night (2018)

Checkmate.

It's the middle of February. An innocuous sounding New Line Cinema-brand comedy called Game Night comes out starring Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams. At this time of year, Hollywood doesn't normally put out it's best from it's yearly lineup. Coming off of the heels of Black Panther, anyone with any idea of theater-going politics would assume that Game Night would bomb terribly and partly for good reason.. It's not funny. Well, perhaps it's box-office numbers will provide it's predictable returns, but on the contrary, Game Night is a fantastic dark comedy. Something I entirely unexpected.

Game Night is Clue, meets David Fincher's "The Game". Dark comedy, this is. Through the laughs, you are put through a real modern day murder-mystery, as only the makers of Horrible Bosses would go about it. The jokes are sharp, sometimes subtle and exhibit a high level of creativity. Unusual for big budgeted comedies that usually play it safe with gross-out sex and fart humor. We wonder if Max and Annie, the masters of board and trivia game parties could finagle their way out of a real life board game in which there is no "get out of jail free" card, saying "Sorry" isn't enough and could result in a painful "Operation".. ah thank you. The rest of the cast delivers the goods. Stand out performances include Billy Magnussen as the stunningly dumb blonde, Ryan, who thinks that a hefty bargain is 17 dollars. Jesse Plemons, as the tragic and creepy Gary is by far the most mesmerizing and the most hilarious character of the film. He never takes off his cop uniform, he holds his adorable West Highland terrier wherever he goes and he has a shrine dedicated to the wife that dumped him. He's so memorable, he's practically a halloween costume in the making.

Game Night is a load of fun. Silly, clever, awesome fun. That's all you can ever ask for.