Sometimes, it just takes a while for a great comedy to be fully embraced by an audience.
Game Night was only a modest success when it hit theaters in 2018, but it’s one of our favorite action comedies of the last decade.
Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams co-headlined the film as Max and Annie Davis, a married couple who are obsessed with games. While playing an elaborate game with two other couples, that obsession leads all of them into real danger.
Amazon recently added Game Night to its lineup, and the Watch With Us team is sharing the reasons why you need to catch it on Prime Video.
Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams Have Great Chemistry
All three of the featured couples in Game Night have their moments to shine, but there’s no question about which actors are driving the movie. This film belongs to Bateman and McAdams from the start, and they play off each other so well that it’s very believable that they’re married and deeply in love with each other
Max and Annie are somewhat inherently ridiculous, but they’re also irresistible as they throw themselves into the game to locate Max’s supposedly kidnapped brother, Brooks (Friday Night Lights star Kyle Chandler). When they learn that the kidnapping is real, Bateman and McAdams make their characters slightly more serious without losing the joy of their comedic moments. They’re so great as a comedy team here that it’s unfortunate they don’t have any other movies together like this one.
Jesse Plemons Steals Every Scene He’s In
While Max and Annie regularly play with Kevin Sterling (Lamorne Morris) and his wife, Michelle (Kylie Bunbury), as well as their single friend, Ryan Huddle (Billy Magnussen), they exclude their neighbor, police officer Gary Kingsbury (Jesse Plemons), after he gets divorced from their other friend, Debbie (Jessica Lee). When Ryan couples up with Sarah Darcy (Sharon Horgan) and gets her into the game night, Max and Annie don’t show the same courtesy to Gary.
That underlying tension is one of the ways that Plemons walks away with all of his scenes. Gary is a very difficult guy to get a read on, and the couples aren’t sure if he’s simply depressed or if he’s potentially dangerous. Gary actually plays his cards pretty close to the chest and doesn’t reveal his true intentions until late in the movie. Regardless, he’s easily one of the most memorable characters in the film.
‘Game Night’ Strikes the Right Balance of Action and Comedy
Game Night could have fallen apart at the moment it put its characters into genuine jeopardy. From that point on, the film navigates a narrative tightrope between dark comedy and action without leaning too far in one direction or the other. Impressively, it pulls off that feat without ever slipping into a complete farce.
There are some genuine stakes in the film, and Michael C. Hall has a fun turn as the movie’s villain, The Bulgarian. He may be the one character who doesn’t have any real comedic moments. He’s simply there to instill a sense of menace to Brooks and the three couples trying to find him.
Even seven years after its theatrical run, Game Night still holds up remarkably well. And it deserves another chance to be a breakout hit.
Game Night is streaming on Prime Video.
