In 2017, I wrote what felt like many words about the fall of the mainstream comedy, from the workshopped-into-anonymity flops (Rough Night) to the dead-on-arrival studio unloadings (The House). Someday in film-history textbooks, they’ll write about the arc that began with the mid-aughts shedding of the “alt-” from alt-comedy. The subsequent bro-driven, smart-stupid, and very profitable salad days of Knocked Up, Superbad, and The Hangover led to the critical and commercial apex of Bridesmaids and the ascendancy of Melissa McCarthy, and continued into a long denouement, as Hollywood repeatedly reconfigures the same handful of elements all the way to 2018 — with notably diminishing returns.
What if two of the guys who wrote Horrible Bosses were turned loose on David Fincher’s The Game? The answer — or something like it — might lie in Game Night, in which a married couple (Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams) find their weekly get-together with friends turned upside down when Bateman’s brother (Kyle Chandler) adds a murder mystery twist that soon seems all too real. It’s a solid setup for the type of pitch-black lunacy that co-directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein are known for, and although they’re not responsible for the script — that honor goes to former Disney writer Mark Perez — critics say the end result is still a comedy that just about lives up to its loaded premise, thanks in no small part to the efforts of a well-chosen cast. Whether you’re a fan of the people involved or simply in the mood for some laughs with a slightly nasty edge, Game Night looks like a winner.
Also, crucially: Screenwriter Mark Perez knows the difference between simply making a reference and actually writing a joke — and while the jokes come ceaselessly, they are knowingly and (this turns out to be key) lightly offered.
Perez, and directors Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, also know that the tightly controlled light comedy taking place among the film's ensemble only works if the chaos it's contrasted against isn't truly chaotic. They've constructed a film in which the tension steadily escalates with at least a nod toward the logic of cause and effect, and characters make stupid but clearly motivated decisions.
It’s a shame to watch, because it’s not as if the comedy world isn’t continuing to produce all kinds of great talent — it’s just that the lumbering process of putting together a mid-budget studio comedy feels ill-suited for their skills and the tastes of audiences alike.