Tag (2018)

Tag, you're it. Based on the true story of a group of men who spend decades tagging each other across the country in order to keep in touch and stay in each others lives. The extent to which they went was truly incredible. This would make for an incredible documentary. But instead, Hollywood wanted to rework the story into a high concept comedy. Not a bad gamble. But you could have done so much with this. The creativity, the fun, the mayhem. You could have done anything. ANYTHING, but what they did here.

Tag is a colossal bomb. It's a sleepwalking comedy, hoping to God that it's concept is so high energy, it could negate the fact that nearly nothing funny was attributed to it. It wouldn't matter if these guys were playing Tiddlywinks, they'd manage to make it suck. Button, button, who's got the stop button? Helms, Renner, Johnson and Hamm want us all to believe they've got the chops here. They're forced to a frightening degree. The only one that is naturally funny is Hannibal Buress, who saved this film from being a walk-out for me. He's a deadpan genius, who could take any mundane line or joke and turn it into gold. Isla Fischer is also a trip. Nonetheless, this is a chore. Aside from a creative scene in the forrest, the endless possibilities of tagging are neglected here in favor of horrendous improv comedy. I want out.