Bateman and McAdams star as Max and Annie, whose weekly couples game night gets kicked up a notch when Max's charismatic brother, Brooks (Chandler), arranges a murder mystery party, complete with fake thugs and faux federal agents. So when Brooks gets kidnapped, it's all part of the game - right? But as the six uber-competitive gamers set out to solve the case and win, they begin to discover that neither this game - nor Brooks - are what they seem to be.
Game Night works best when it focuses on the personalities of its characters and meanders when it pays too much attention to the particulars of the plots-within-the-plot.
The back and forth between McAdams and Bateman is what makes Game Night sing (which is not to slight Horgan's dry wit or Magnussen's elegant idiocy or Morris' magnificent Denzel Washington impression).
With its clever, whip-smart script and enthusiastic ensemble cast firing on all cylinders, crime comedy filmmakers Jonathan Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein score big with Game Night.
Game Night pulls off more narrative twists than an Olympic freestyle skier. And like those gravity-defying champions, the filmmakers' timing, preparation, and technical precision makes it all look deceptively easy.
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.
...once you open the box and take out the pieces, it's just a matter of going from one contrived square to another. Not even the rolls of the dice add up to more than three-act narrative math.
Directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein keep things peppy, benefitting hugely from a pumped, overqualified ensemble that mine a commendable amount of laughter from a so-so script.