2018’s Tag, directed
by Jeff Tomsic.
Starring Jeremy Renner, Ed Helms, Jake Johnson, Jon Hamm,
Hannibal Buress, Annabelle Wallis, Brian Dennehy, Isla Fisher, Leslie Bibb, Rashida
Jones, and Steve Berg.
What is it about?
Tag is the story
of 5 lifelong buddies who have had a decades long competition to play tag with
one another. As grown men in their 40’s, they take a month during each year to
pursue their game. A Wall Street reporter (Annabelle Wallis), originally
assigned to a story on a successful CEO (Jon Hamm), realizes that the real
story is in Hamm’s camaraderie with middle aged pothead (Jake Johnson), middle
aged professional (Ed Helms), middle aged intellectual (Hannibal Buress), and
middle aged elite over achiever (Jeremy Renner)- who’s never actually been
tagged before. The group conspires to tag the practically super human Renner-
will he finally be tagged?
Why is it worth seeing?
Tag’s marketing
promises it to be a comedy, with comedic actors dotting its cast. However, the
laughs arrive pretty sparsely, and its plot will only appeal to a select group
of people who can look past a ridiculous premise long enough to see glimpses of
lifelong friendship, and for those who think friends slapping each other
constitutes action.
Despite the fact that Tag
is (loosely) based off of a true story, it’s premise feels unbelievable. It
might be because the cast’s chemistry is off, or because we don’t really get to
know the group beyond their thinly sketched archetypes. Either way, we’re not
that interested in their obsession, nor in the characters since we don’t really
get to know that much about them. Screenwriters Rob McKittrick and Mark Steilen
try their best to stealthily dump exposition through the fake journalist
character, but no dice- no wonder print is considered dead. Can we know more
about the Johnson character, the underdog of the cast? Or about Helm’s “focused”
wife (played by the indomitable Isla Fisher)? Or Buress at all?
Sparsely populated with laughs or characters worth caring
about, Tag also comes up short in its
action moments, as it attempts to be a sort of comedy-action hybrid (similar to
the very successful, Game Night).
With the Jeremy Renner character having (the Guy Ritchie version of) Shirlock Holmes-like powers of deduction
and fast twitch muscles, there’s attempts to make the tagging scenes action
packed. It’s just not exciting or authentic enough to really care about, and
that’s before they start ripping off scenes from Predator. One suggestion? Use the logic of the 10 individuals the
movie is based on, where you can’t tag back immediately. You can avoid scenes
of grown men in circles slapping each other back and forth- should you decide
to make a motion picture about it.
Despite being based off of a true story Tag is difficult to believe, tough to be excited by, genuinely bereft
of laughs, and possessing disappointing characterization- this is one game that
is worth considering passing on.
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