Game Night

***Game Night*** is a 2018 American action black-comedy film directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein and written by Mark Perez. It stars Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, with a supporting cast including Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris, Kylie Bunbury, Jesse Plemons, Michael C. Hall and Kyle Chandler.

## Plot

Max and Annie's weekly game night gets kicked up a notch when Max's brother Brooks arranges a murder mystery party -- complete with fake thugs and federal agents. So when Brooks gets kidnapped, it's all supposed to be part of the game. As the competitors set out to solve the case, they start to learn that neither the game nor Brooks are what they seem to be. The friends soon find themselves in over their heads as each twist leads to another unexpected turn over the course of one chaotic night.

## Why It Rocks

1. It's a high concept idea and one that works thanks to Daley and Goldstein's assured and often imaginatively constructed direction and the ability for the film to both not take itself too seriously or not playing to the lowest common denominators.
2. Writer Mark Perez and directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein have crafted a tightly structured story with little visual tricks that turn out to be significant.
3. They took an ensemble cast that took clever writing and made it even funnier.
4. It's a rare major studio comedy that actually feels like a film, thanks to such creative choices like Cliff Martinez's thumping score and Barry Peterson's cinematography, which not only introduces new locations as if zooming in on a board game piece, but also sports a surprisingly well-executed long take.
5. Lamorne Morris and Billy Magnussen are some of the obvious standouts among the film's enjoyable cast of characters, but Jesse Plemons is the true MVP, stealing every single one of his scenes with ease.
6. The film is filled with visual gems that when combined with Drive and Neon Demon composer Cliff Martinez's score, create a memorable mood and setting.
7. Quite possibly the best Clue remake we'd ever get.
8. The scene where Annie being confronted by one of The Bulgarian's guards, who then gets shredded by a jet turbine is very funny.

## Bad Qualities

1. The film isn't without its problems, with the convoluted third act jumping the shark almost to the point of parody.
2. Unnecessary product placements.

## Reception

*Game Night* receiving praise for its originality, humor, script and performances. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 85% based on 256 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "With a talented cast turned loose on a loaded premise — and a sharp script loaded with dark comedy and unexpected twists — *Game Night* might be more fun than the real thing.". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 66 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported that 78% of filmgoers gave it a positive score. Many critics noted the similarity of the plot to that of The Man Who Knew Too Little.