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Writer's picturemovieejunkiee

Game Night: Ready to Play?

Updated: Feb 21, 2023


Reviews by:

  • @movieejunkiee

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Introduction

I rewatched this last night because Game Night is one of my favourite comedies of all time. This film is funny, surprising, entertaining and full of plot twists. The acting is great and so is the directing. I also loved the dramatic noises from the score (kind of like in The Shining). This film is so underrated. It should get as much praise as something like The Hangover because it's that good.

Acting

First, let's talk about the acting. Jason Bateman is one of my favourite comedic actors (along with Carrey and Carrell). Even though almost all of his roles are pretty much the same character, he plays the sarcastic and "worried" guy so well. Bateman gave my favourite performance but Jesse Plemons is a close second. He plays Gary, a boring and sad man who lost his wife, so seriously and well. Everytime he is on screen he gives me the creeps. I can't wait to see him in Scorsese's new movie this year. Everybody in the cast did a great job but Jason and Jesse, in my opinion, were the best.

Directing

One thing I loved about this film was the directing. Both directors (John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein) did an excellent job on the directing for Game Night. There were so many shots in this film that actually made me say "WOW" out loud. I loved the tracking shots where they would follow a character through walls. There was also another tracking shot of cars in a car chase. John and Jonathan would fixate on the car making the car the centre of attention using an angle that would face the back and the top of the car (shown behind the text). One other shot I loved was the one take shot where all the characters are running around a mansion throwing an egg around, it's so well filmed.

More Directing

Another big part of the directing was the framing. There are two specific shots that I absolutely adored but I couldn't find them online. There was one shot where Sarah was in frame as she pulled a Jenga piece away from the tower and her face was in the centre of the Jenga tower. The other shot is where Gary is sitting down while everyone's playing Jenga and two guns are hanging on the fireplace behind him. There's one gun on either side of his head. I also loved the gradual zooms on Gary's facials expressions.

Even More Directing

Last but not least, the shots hovering the town (shown behind this text). At first I was sure that the shots of the town were miniature sets but after researching I don't think they are. They actually used a tilt shift effect to make the town look like a board game (such as Monopoly) to reinforce the title and overall story of the film, Game Night.

Animations/Editing

From the opening credits this film draws you in with it's animation (shown behind this text). There are a lot of uses for the animation in this film and it is simply aesthetically pleasing. I really enjoyed the opening credits with all the board game pieces falling in slow motion with the use of powerful animation and editing. It really shows that in this day and age every film is able to resemble something like this. Also, the editing is phenomenal. There's specifically one thing that I loved about the editing and that's the quick millisecond shots of coins dropping or Jenga pieces getting thrown on a table. Every once in a while in Game Night there would be three or four different shots of objects getting thrown or splashed which flashes before your eyes. It is very similar to some shots in Snatch.

Favourite Scene

My favourite scene of this whole movie is the Bullet Removal Scene. This scene is HILARIOUS. When Jason Bateman gets shot in the arm, he and his wife go to the drug store to fetch tools to get the bullet out of his arm. This whole scene's dialogue is so well written. I love how calm Jason and Rachel are considering that one of them got shot in the arm. Anyway, at the end of the scene they realise that the bullet also had an exit wound so there was no point in cutting open his arm and fiddling around with tweasers trying to find a bullet.

Plot Twist and Conclusion

(Spoiler Free). This film is filled with plot twists. The script is amazingly written by Mark Perez. He incorporated plot twist after plot twist it's unreal. It leaves you questioning what the hell is going on for the whole 3rd act of the film. If you haven't already please watch this movie. It's one of my favourite comedies of all time. Anyway, that is today's review. I hope you like it because I have spent hours making this post. Make sure to drop a comment with your thoughts on Game Night and my review/essay! Thanks for reading! See you tomorrow!




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