Taglines: This is not a game.
Married competitive gamer couple Max and Annie are trying to have a child, but their attempts are unsuccessful due to Max’s stress surrounding his feelings of inadequacy when compared to his successful, attractive brother Brooks. During Max and Annie’s routine weekend game night with their friends Ryan, and married couple Kevin and Michelle, Brooks shows up Max by arriving in a Corvette Stingray (Max’s dream car) and sharing an embarrassing childhood story about Max to throw Max off during a game.
Brooks offers to host the next game night at a house he is renting while he is in town. Meanwhile, Max and Annie are trying to keep their game nights secret from their neighbor Gary, an awkward police officer left distraught after his divorce from their old friend Debbie, who has since moved away.
When the guests, including Ryan’s new date, Sarah, arrive at Brooks’ house the following week, Brooks says he has initiated an interactive role-playing mystery game, promising the winner his Stingray. A man dressed as an FBI agent bursts into the home and informs them of the narrative of the mystery, only for two masked men to break in and assault him and Brooks.
The guests believe the assault is part of the game, so they just watch and comment on the struggle. After Brooks is dragged out of the house, the couples begin to solve the mystery using the clues left behind by the actor. Using his GPS location, Max and Annie track Brooks down to a seedy bar and, using a pistol left behind by Brooks during the struggle (which they believe to be fake), manage to take the keys to the storage closet, where Brooks is being held.
After Annie mistakenly fires the gun and shoots Max in the arm, confirming the weapon is real and that they are in actual danger, the three escape. Brooks admits that he actually makes his living buying and selling illegal items on the black market, in particular a Fabergé egg sought by a man known only as “the Bulgarian” and owned by a man using the alias Marlon Freeman. With his captors in pursuit, Brooks exits the moving car to guarantee Max and Annie’s escape.
Game Night is a 2018 American dark comedy film directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein and written by Mark Perez. It stars Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams, and follows a group of friends whose game night turns into a real-life mystery after one of them is kidnapped by apparent burglars. The film’s supporting cast includes Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris, Kylie Bunbury, Jesse Plemons, Michael C. Hall, and Kyle Chandler.
Warner Bros. Pictures released the film on February 23, 2018. It was a commercial and critical success, grossing $117 million worldwide and receiving praise for its dark humor and performances. Plemons, whose performance was highlighted by many critics, was nominated for the Detroit Film Critics Society Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Game Night (2018)
Directed by: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein
Starring: Jesse Plemons, Rachel McAdams, Jason Bateman, Kylie Bunbury, Billy Magnussen, Chelsea Peretti, Kyle Chandler, Sharon Horgan, Kabby Borders, Lamorne Morris, Joshua Mikel, Camille Chen
Screenplay by: Mark Perez
Production Design by: Michael Corenblith
Cinematography by: Barry Peterson
Film Editing by: David Egan, Jamie Gross, Gregory Plotkin
Costume Design by: Debra McGuire
Music by: Cliff Martinez
MPAA Rating: R for language, sexual references and some violence.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: February 23, 2018
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