Back in the day, my friend, flatmate and fellow student aka effing Paul and I used to take turns in hosting a game night. And by game I mean singular, not plural. Scrabble to be precise. And by night I mean from nine o’clock on a Friday evening until the grape and the grain ran dry. Or more often than not until the grape and the grain blurred our vision and emboldened us to un-mind our Ps and Qs.

No one kept score, no money changed hands and the laws of the game can best be described as The Cider House Rules for Strongbow and Woodpecker were in bubbly abundance. Though when funds were low and spirits even lower, Diamond White was our poison of choice. Poison being the operative word since the downing of it provoked scenes of projectile vomiting reminiscent of Linda Blair in The Exorcist. A spectator sport it was not.

Unlike the “game night to remember” hosted by bragging Brooks (Kyle Chandler), brother of emasculated Max (Jason Bateman) who in turn is married to ambitious Annie (Rachel McAdams), which like the screenplay by Mark Perez has more twists than a pontoon player drawing 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. The premise of which is a murder mystery in which the dinner guests have one hour to find the culprit.

But when punches are thrown, bullets are fired and the resultant trickles of red are not ketchup but blood, eyebrows as well as suspicions are raised among the keen-turned-green competitors who include: Lamorne Morris and Kylie Bunbury as the warring Kevin and Michelle, the latter of whom has the hots for Denzel Washington; Billy Magnussen and Sharon Horgan as himbo Ryan and far from bimbo Sarah; and the scene-stealing Jesse Plemons as Max’s neighbour Gary who is ostracised on the grounds that he is a creepy loner.

If you were to record the laughter on a graph, there would be no sharp spikes or deep troughs; more a gentle undulation which swells at comic set pieces deftly directed by Horrible Bosses co-writers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the most memorable of which is the gory extraction of a bullet courtesy of racist instructions for dummies. Equally enjoyable is the inventive camerawork by Barry Peterson (Sisters, 22 Jump Street), particularly the single tracking shot of a prized egg as it tossed from one group member to another in order to prevent it from falling into the evil clutches of The Bulgarian (Michael C. Hall).

At the start of the film Mike hollers, “Who cares about winning, let’s get drunk.” A sentiment echoed by effing Paul and I during our drunken games of Scrabble. But by the end of the film the opposite is the case as one surprising plot twist follows another and, to quote Taggart, “thurz been a murder”. A night to remember indeed ‒ and a game one at that!

Directors: John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein
Writer: Mark Perez
Stars: Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, Kyle Chandler
Peter Callaghan
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