Game Over Man!

With Tag (2018), we have finished watching the three adult game movies of the last few years (see Ready or Not and Game Night). This is probably the one that started them all, or at least it is based on the Wall Street Journal article about the real-life game players that started it.

It starts with Ed Helms getting a job as a janitor, applying a fake mustache, and trying to get close to executive Jon Hamm. While he's being interviewed by Wall Street Journal reporter Annabelle Wallace, Helms tags him. The game is on! They explain to Wallace, who tags (!) along: ever since they were kids, they have played a game of tag for the entire month of May. Now, one of the gang, Jeremy Renner, is getting married. And he has never been It, never been tagged. So this is their chance.

They collect Jake Johnson, a divorced stoner who lives with his dad, and Hannibal Buress, who they pull out of a therapy session. Helms' wife, Isla Fisher, joins the crew, although she isn't actually in the game, because of a game by-law: "No girls allowed". Also, she has impulse control issues and gets pretty intense. They all head to their home town, to crash a wedding. 

Their first attempt to catch Renner fails, but not because they suck at tag, as Renner says. He has the speed and agility of a ninja, with the strategic awareness of Jason Bourne - but that's a different movie. Any way, his bride-to-be meets them and is guardedly cordial, begging them not to interrupt the wedding. So they add that to the by-laws. But they still plan to tag Renner.

This is kind of fun in a conventional way. We get to meet a quirky bunch of very old friends, with very different lives, but a shared history. Rashida Jones shows up as the girl that both Hamm and Johnson were in love with, possibly invited by Renner to sow dissension in the ranks. 

By the way, even though I knew better, I kept thinking of Helms as Steve Carrell - the same earnest dweebiness. Also, I kept thinking of Rashida Jones as Illeana Douglas and Isla Fisher as Rachel McAdams. I'm not good with names and faces.

I guess we're done with game movies.