Sharp characters make Game Night wholesome

We all have those friends who are minutiae, squinting to the details of anything. What if those friends got married, bonded for life through their love of competition, and then had to put their table games expertise to use during a violent kidnapping? This is the question posed by the refreshingly oddball action comedy Game Night, which is funnier and much more entertaining than promised by its high-stakes premise.The trivia-loving couple is Max and Annie, played by Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams. Max is always stressed, comparing himself to his cool elder brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler). That stress is inflamed when Kyle ups the ante on their group game night, hiring a team to stage an elaborate kidnapping. It’s like an escape room, but in your own house.Things go very awry when actual kidnappers snatch Kyle before the hired actors show up, unravelling a web of secrets, lies, crimes and the Fabergé eggs. Max (Jason Bateman) and Annie (Rachel McAdams), playing along, still think it’s all just a game. There’s a comic scene of the two to get you rolling, two jokily threatening the kidnappers in a dive bar, spouting speeches from Pulp Fiction and turning a loaded pistol like a water gun.But while it hits those beats, it doesn’t look or sound like a big budget action comedy, often veering into the style of an indie suspense thriller. The overall plot of the film works because it’s hard to pin down. Max complains “pick a tone!” about their botched kidnapping game, but part of what makes the film fun is that it doesn’t. Scripted by Mark Perez, all the pieces fit together like a perfect Rubik cube. The characters are sharp and witty, fully fleshed-out, with their own internal conflicts to overcome, and there’s not an inch of extended long content in the film. Directed by the writing/directing team of John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, it seems to be a creative breakthrough for the duo, especially after their debut of knotty Vacation, the toil that turned out confusing and nostalgic along the wrong lines of cinema. But their embrace of aesthetic experimentation along with Perez’s script leads to a very satisfying genre hybrid this time though. The lighting is darker and there are creative camera movements with long shots, and an uncanny Cliff Martinez electro score thrums like we’re watching Drive.They’ve stacked the cast with ringers, too. For the friends, they smartly snapped up Sharon Horgan, from Catastrophe and paired her with Billy Magnussen, who has cornered the market on playing beautiful, enthusiastic imbecile. Lamorne Morris and Kylie Bunbury have a fun chemistry and conflict, and Kyle Chandler gets to flex his surprisingly great comedy chops as boorish big bro Brooks. But Game Night would not be as weird and creepy and hilarious as it is without Jesse Plemons as Gary, the ghostly character of neighbour who lives next door.To balance the sour, McAdams and Bateman bring the sweet as the hopelessly competitive, unwaveringly devoted couple at the center of all this. They might be obsessed with playing games, but they always take each other seriously, and that heart keeps the stakes just right during this Game Night. — TNS