Tag (2018) Review!!!!

Synopsis – A small group of former classmates organize an elaborate, annual game of tag that requires some to travel all over the country.

My Take – Looking at history, films based on true stories usually tend to be about some heroic act or great personal struggle, which end up resonating in something emotional or heartwarming. What they don’t tend to be are wacky stories about grown men engaged in an epic game of tag. Based on a 2013 article published in The Wall Street Journal about a group of ten middle-aged men, friends since childhood, who stayed close chums through years of movement, jobs, marriages and children. All it took was one simple rule: they would reserve one month a year for continuing the same game of ‘tag’ they’ve been playing since adolescence. Even in their late years, these men remained committed to the game, all the while taking increasingly extravagant measures to just tag each other.

Personally, I have been looking forward to this film for a while and hearing that it was based on a true story made me that much more intrigued by it. Backed by the same studio who found success with the films like The Hangover and Horrible Bosses, this latest hyperactive, gleefully foul-mouthed comedy about grown men behaving like children, is is for all intents and purposes an extremely silly and over the top typical summer comedy one that knows and understands what it is and is all the better for it. Yes, the concept is paper thin, but first time director Jeff Tomsic makes sure the fast paced comedy wears its R rating proudly and keeps us engaged throughout. If you like these actors or like films in this genre, you’ll really enjoy it! It’s really funny, the plot is well developed and has more meaning to it than just jokes.

The story follows a group of friends that include, Hogan “Hoagie” Malloy (Ed Helms), a veterinary physician who is also a bit of a dweeb, Bob Callahan (Jon Hamm), a buttoned-down Insurance tycoon, Randy “Chilli” Cilliano (Jake Johnson), a jittery burnout and Kevin Sable (Hannibal Buress), the anxious hypochondriac, who having the playing the same game of tag for the past thirty years exclusively in the month of May, as a way to stay in each other’s lives. However, things are about to change as the fifth member of their group, Jerry Pierce (Jeremy Renner), the quick-witted, and endlessly committed die-hard fan of the game, who has never been tagged in their 30-year history, has decided to retire once he gets married to his fiancée Susan Rollins (Leslie Bibb) at the end of the target month.

Finding this is an opportunity to finally get Jerry, the boys decide to return to their hometown to finally tag Jerry once and for all. Joining them are Anna Malloy (Isla Fisher), Hogan’s intense wife and Rebecca Crosby (Annabelle Wallis), a Wall Street Journal reporter, who was initially set to write a profile on Callahan’s company but found this situation more intriguing to follow. While a pact is made to keep the wedding parties and the ceremony off limits, the gang is just not willing to let Jerry leave with a spotless record, no matter what.

Yes, the plot is silly and outlandish, and the film knows that, but the fact that people are actually out there in the real world doing this, made for a much more subdued experience. High-concept comedies like this often only go as far as their premise will take them: without a solid foundation, even the best casts are often left to flounder and meekly improvise with each other. Yet, screenwriters Rob McKittrick and Mark Steilen, along with director Jeff Tomsic, manage to mine considerable charm out of an inventive premise, and strike gold with its fun cast. This film could have easily settled for rehashing Wedding Crashers, or virtually every other comedy ensemble that Ed Helms has starred in to date, but the film steers its focus toward the same elements that turned the article it’s based on into a viral human-interest story, by not just flattering the intelligence but by also respecting the characters’ camaraderie and the deeply weird concept.

As it’s all about tagging Jerry, and the extraordinary lengths the boys (and girls) go through to tag someone who’s almost supernaturally untaggable. For example, Hoagie goes to the trouble of getting a job as a janitor at Callahan’s company, just to get into his office to tag him; later, he dresses up as an old lady in an attempt at intercepting Jerry while he picks up his dry cleaning. Much like the excellent Game Night, this film too is executed with far more élan than other bland ensembles nearly every studio comedy has been flaunting in the last decade. Unsurprisingly, the film is funny, and does a nice job of broadening the comedic styles across the board to not only help each character stand out, but keeping the comedy fresh and fun. I myself enjoyed the physical comedy of the group, which felt like a more ridiculous version of Home Alone‘s stunts. In addition, Sable’s dry, monotone delivery was perfect to offset all the yelling, high drug and angry comedy that the rest brought. Matched with the energy of the film, the comedy helped rejuvenate the youthful energy of the film and keep everything fun to watch.

Yes, some of the jokes don’t land as hard as they could and the comedy can be juvenile at times, sometimes veering towards gross-out humor, but director Jeff Tomsic, who spent most of his career in television, toes the line between disgusting and funny wonderfully. The slapstick humor pushes into cartoonish, which is always a risky gamble when dealing with live action, but the film’s good spirit and the camaraderie of its leads – and those scaled-down blockbuster set pieces – keeps you involved throughout. What’s most refreshing about the film, though, is that it doesn’t lean on just raunchiness to deliver laughs; it’s all about mind games. Sure, they go to some dark places – Jerry threatening to masturbate over someone’s childhood teddy bear, intercepting AA meetings, and so on – but they’re eventually leavened in humorous ways. It’s an unexpected layer of meta-comedy that spices up the film’s bag of tricks, which the film miraculously pulls off without seeming mean-spirited.

Here director Tomsic also smartly takes on the moody, stylized air of Guy Ritchie action films by the slowing down the sequences with Jerry’s calculated voice over anticipating moves and calculating counter-moves like Robert Downey Jr.’s Sherlock Holmes. He flips and jumps like Jason Bourne, effortlessly evading his clumsy friends with superhero-level physicality, a delightfully effective way to elevate this child’s game into something cinematic. In addition to his physics-defying combat skills, Jerry’s seemingly rigged the entire town up against them — messing with their heads to the degree that at one point they can’t even be certain there is a wedding.

That’s the main trick of the film, these men have spent years chipping away at all that is sacred if it gets them ahead in their game, knowing that taking advantage of supposedly vulnerable moments is the only way to win, and the game quickly becomes a who-can-go-lower fakeout-off. However, besides the game, the film is also a subtle affecting examination on friendship and finding reasons to remain in each other’s life, which makes the film become such an enjoyable watch from start to finish. Through this story, the characters evolve, and the relationship dives into something much more emotionally charged than I ever expected. Perhaps that’s the secret to the film’s success, in the sense, like the real figures at the center, all the schemes and tricks and traps are just the way these men express their sincere affection for one another.

That’s sweet enough, but the way their loved ones also get wrapped up in the game as well makes the film, as corny as it might sound, a testament to the transformative power of play. In a world where men are often socialized not to touch, it’s ironic that these men would use touch as a way to stay close all these years. It’s a five-way bromance at its core, but it doesn’t forget to wrap other people into its sweet, loving orbit as well. Nevertheless, it’s hard to overlook the film’s final act, which without spoiling anything, moves into melodramatic territory revealing a certain twist about a character and his reasoning behind the intensity, while I appreciate trying to add more heart, it made the overall goal too easy. I personally feel it could have been more profound if something unpredictable had been added to affect the dynamics of the group. I have no idea if the real life subjects faced a similar dilemma, but if they did, I do feel for them.

Thankfully this does not affect the overall experience of the film, mainly as director Jeff Tomsic has here assembled a cast that willingly and gleefully pulls off this caper. It’s a delight to watch Ed Helms, Jon Hamm, Jake Johnson, Hannibal Buress, and Jeremy Renner play off each other hilariously, delivering lines like its part of their normal conversation and hitting their timing in fantastic stride to pull laughs. Their interplay never feels forced, as they are also clearly having fun whilst doing so. Isla Fisher too is delightful here, by reprising her obsessively crazy persona from Wedding Crashers, she too manages to throw down with the boys in a way that doesn’t sideline her. Leslie Bibb too is enjoyable as the nervous yet understanding bride to be. However, the same can’t be said for Annabelle Wallis, who in order to point an audience POV is stuck in a role that is humorless and incomplete. Rashida Jones, too sadly gets less to do as an old flame of Callahan and Chilli, who have been competing for her affections since kindergarten. On the whole, ‘Tag‘ is a surprisingly enjoyable comedy that makes the most of its concept while being incredibly entertaining.