Tag (2018)

September 3, 2018 12:54 PM

For one month every year, five highly competitive friends hit the ground running in a no-holds-barred game of tag they've been playing since the first grade. This year, the game coincides with the wedding of their only undefeated player, which should finally make him an easy target. But he knows they're coming...and he's ready.

Metacritic: 56

Rotten Tomatoes: 54%

Based on this real story.

posted by numaner (10 comments total)

It may be an asinine premise and also the real group of friends are all white males thus able to get away with all the shit they do to tag each other, but I found the movie pretty enjoyable and was funnier than I expected. Most of the physical comedy were in the trailer, but there's a great number of jokes that the cast pulls off just fine. Hannibal Buress is as funny as ever, and of course Ed Helms, Jon Hamm, and Isla Fisher have fantastic comedic timing. Jake Johnson is Jake Johnson, not that that's a bad thing. Even Jeremy Renner was at least mildly funny, thanks to his physical skills from his action movies paired with the rest of the cast's reactions.

Slight SPOILERS:

I didn't know Rashida Jones was in this movie, but her short scenes were great! I just don't see any chemistry between her and either of the guys though.

I was glad that there was a clear message about friendship, and that unlike the real group, they have a black guy and then eventually women in the game.
posted by numaner at 12:56 PM on September 3, 2018

I was 100% down for this movie as soon as I saw the trailer the first time, and it delivered exactly what I wanted: a fun movie with charismatic leads that I like seeing in movies, and some fun physical comedy bits. I cannot imagine anyone not liking this movie. Loving it? No, of course not. But judging it "rotten" or whatever? Bah. That just means you don't like fun.

(Admittedly, this just barely passes the Siskel Test: "Is this movie more interesting than a documentary about the same actors having lunch?")

The whole "last shot at Jerry" thing didn't make sense, and frankly, even after the twist was revealed, it still didn't, but I guess they needed a "goal" to make it a real movie instead of just a collection of vignettes. The various reveals of Jerry and Susan's plotting (and the layers of Leslie Bibb's performance in general) were a lot of fun, too.

In case anyone hasn't heard the story of Renner breaking his arms: during the chair-stacking bit in the church basement on the second or third day of shooting, he fell, breaking both arms. They wrapped the casts in green and digitally created his arms in nearly every shot that made it to the final cut.
posted by Etrigan at 2:04 PM on September 3, 2018 [5 favorites]

"Is this movie more interesting than a documentary about the same actors having lunch?"

You'll be the judge of that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnLIPjYS__o

(Admittedly, this stretches the definitions of documentary and lunch a bit.)
posted by bigendian at 2:22 PM on September 3, 2018

I was pretty meh about this, and actually found the clips of the actual friends at the end more enjoyable because they looked like they were having a ton of fun with the surprises. But that's not enough of a plot or conflict for a film (though it could have been fun as a TV series, given how many really dull shows have been produced in this, the Golden Age of TV), so they had to amp up the presentation.

Yeah, it was a fun faux-action film, with Hawkeye*'s slow-motion mid-action evaluations and whatnot, and the hyper-competitive wife, plus the "we're adults, let's change the rules and be more inclusive!" ending.

* I'm not sure if it's more fun to think of Jeremy Renner's character as Hawkeye pretending to be a normal guy with normal friends, but that's how I think of it now, because I couldn't remember his characer's name, or Renner's own name, TBH.
posted by filthy light thief at 5:06 PM on September 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

I really enjoyed the dumb trailer and I look forward to watching this on TV someday! (Love learning about the Siskel test!)
posted by latkes at 8:46 PM on September 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure if it's more fun to think of Jeremy Renner's character as Hawkeye pretending to be a normal guy with normal friends

actually if the twist turned out to be that he's freaking amazing because he's Aaron Cross I would've lost my shit and recommended this movie to everyone
posted by numaner at 9:44 AM on September 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Up until a couple of minutes ago this movie was a hard pass for me. You all have made me reconsider my hard heart.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 5:39 PM on September 4, 2018

It was also nice getting a bit of action without anyone getting shot or maimed. Not a great movie by any stretch, but fun enough.
posted by ODiV at 2:44 PM on September 5, 2018

Holy shit they made a movie of those guys. I remember the story floating around like 10 years ago. Ah, the WSJ article says 5. Anyway...man. Good for them.
posted by rhizome at 10:31 PM on September 5, 2018

Just caught this after seeing the trailer and thinking "meh" at first.
I really thought it was less shallow and way funnier than expected.
Was a great Gen X film.
Fantastic Predator Joke, 90s soundtrack and taking the piss out of The Crash Test Dummies. What's not to like?
posted by fullerine at 9:44 AM on November 22