Warner Bros. Home
Entertainment has tabbed May 22 as the street date for the directing team of John
Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s winning adult-themed mystery comedy, Game
Night.
The ARR is 88 days and
the box office take was a stellar $67.9 million.
Planned for release are a
Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack edition and a stand-alone DVD SKU.
Jason Bateman has hit his
stride as both a dead-pan, even snarky, comedy leading man — not quite a Bob
Hope yet, but a few more Game Night-like films and he’ll be
right there — and film producer (which means he controls the future of his
career). He produced this winner and
teamed up with fellow actor and filmmaker John Francis Daley and his
producing/directing/writing partner Jonathan Goldstein (co-writers on both of the
Horrible
Bosses films and the writing/directing team of Vacation … among other
writing and production credits) and the result is a near perfect 100 minutes of
comedy merriment.
And, the inclusion of Rachel
McAdams (Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actress in Spotlight, plus such
films as Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,
etc.) as Bateman’s wife and fellow game player was inspired (Bateman and
McAdams were both in director Kevin Macdonald’s 2009 thriller, State
of Play).
Max (Bateman) and Annie
(McAdams) and their neighborhood friends have game night, which is more of an
excuse to have a friendly wine and cheese party every week. It’s fun and everyone seems to enjoy
it. However, Max’s over-achieving
brother (played by Kyle Chandler) — an all around pain-in-the-ass — interjects
himself into their latest game night, invites them over to his fancy digs and
changes the rules.
It will be a “real” game
… sort of like Michael Douglas and Sean Penn, the Van Ortons, trying to figure out
what is real and not real in director David Fincher’s 1997 thriller, The
Game. And no sooner does he lay
all of this out when a couple of thugs break in and abduct him. Max, Annie and their guests think that it is
part of the game and enjoy the violence and commotion as part of the play-acting
… this is going to be great fun!
Game Night quickly turns into a real-life scavenger hunt as
the couples gleefully try to solve Max’s brother’s game challenge, which
includes his fancy car as a prize. What
they don’t realize — at first — is that the game is real and that the game is
rigged … and there is more going on within the game than meets the eye. In short, Game Night is a hoot!
As to bonus goodies,
there is a gag reel and a making-of featurette titled “An Unforgettable
Evening: Making Game Night.”
No comments:
Post a Comment