The Dubai premier of the movie was packed. Vox Cinemas at The Mall of the Emirates screened the premier of the movie in two theatres just to accommodate the crowd of people whose interest in twisted comedy matched mine. I’m glad there’s more like me.
The trailer of the movie is hilarious, if you haven’t watched it yet, here it is below. And please note that this is a black comedy that’s rated a Strong R for language and violence.
There is a lot packed into this movie. It starts as your typical romantic-comedy, morphs into a buddy-flick and then quickly takes a right-angled turn into an intense action flick.
The entire movie is generously peppered with humour and there are dark moments where the entire theatre gets involved with a loud, “what the heck just happened?” The movie touches on genres such as action, mystery, horror, comedy and crime.
If you’re on a difficult date night with someone who can’t decide on a genre – this one ticks all the boxes.
You would get into the movie quite quickly. It starts off right away with loads of humour and introduces you to the characters almost immediately.
Watch out for the crowd favourite Gary Kingsbury, played by Jesse Plemons (Breaking Bad, Black Mirror).
Gary’s the creepy cop who lives next door. The rest of the cast is brilliant and regardless of your specific personality, you will find someone in the movie that you can relate to.
The main premise focuses on Max (Jason Bateman) and Annie (Rachel McAdams) and the couple's weekly game nights with their close friends. Max’s brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler) moves into town and kicks game night up a notch, hiring an agency to fake a kidnapping for a murder mystery party.
As you’ll see in the trailer, things go very wrong. The cast soon find out that the kidnapping wasn’t staged and it ends up being a real crime. There are bullets, relationship issues, blood, love, car chases, friendship, fight scenes – they literally set out to make a movie about everything.
A surprising addition to the cast that doesn’t make an appearance in the trailer is Michael C. Hall.
Pop-culture and TV-show geeks will love the main villain of the movie, who shows up towards the end. Hall (Dexter) plays The Bulgarian, a ruthless cold mobster that the crew have to deal with in order to save the day.
Together with Bateman and McAdams, the movie also stars Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris and Kylie Bunbury. It’s directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (both screenwriters from Horrible Bosses and directors for the upcoming DC Movie Flashpoint)
The movie is without a doubt a must-watch. It gives us a break from all the superhero movies planned for 2018 and judging by the end of the movie, there could be a Game Night 2. After all, these are the guys behind the hilarious Horrible Bosses and Horrible Bosses 2.
