Tag review: True life buddy comedy runs out of steam.
Tag review by Freda Cooper.
Tag review
You couldn’t make this up – but, oh, you so wish you had! The story of five school friends who were so addicted to playing tag that the game took on a life of its own, even when they grew up and settled down. Sort of. Better still, it’s a genuinely true story and has movie potential written all over it in letters five feet high.
It’s thirty years since the five played their first ever game. Nowadays, because they all live in different parts of the country, they just devote one month of the year to the most inventive, extreme – correction, insane – ways they can find to tag each other. That month is May, and it’s also the month when Jerry (Jeremy Renner) gets married – the one member of the gang who has never, ever been “it”. The other four can’t resist the chance to at last get their hands on him.
Sounds like fun, huh? If only. What started out as a great premise for a comedy, full of possibilities, is one big missed opportunity, short on laughs and characters, despite an all-star cast. One exception is Renner himself, who turns out to be surprisingly good at this type of comedy as the suave, super-fit Jerry, complete with a neo-Tin Tin quiff. The fact that he broke both arms while filming this particular movie – not, ironically, while playing a super hero – has gone down in recent movie history. His arm casts were concealed by the wonders of CGI. See if you can tell.
Tag review
The other friends are played by Ed Helms, Jon Hamm, Jake Johnson and Hannibal Buress. In truth, Helms is, well, Ed Helms. Yet again. Although we know from Baby Driver that Jon Hamm can play dark comedy, he looks very out of sorts playing the broader variety, while Johnson and Buress have very little to do apart from throw in the occasional attempt at a funny line. It’s all very hit and miss. And you can only feel sorry for Annabelle Wallis in a non-role if ever there was one as the journalist who wrote the article that inspired the film. Thank goodness, then, for Isla Fisher who provides the film with the injection of real comedy that it so sorely needs as Helms’ over-competitive wife. She’s the real star of the film, putting the all-male gang in the shade, even if she actually isn’t playing tag at all.
First time director Jeff Tomsic is in the chair for this one. He’s clearly adept at injecting energy of the frenetic variety into the action sequences, when the game is afoot, so to speak. They’re fun and engaging, but the intervening scenes are generally flat, making for an uneven, and at times messy, experience. It’s a sad fact that the few minutes of home footage of the real gang shown before the credits is more inventive and has more laughs than the rest of the film put together.
It doesn’t bode well for the rest of 2018’s comedy output. The year got off to a great start with the gloriously funny Game Night, Blockers wasn’t quite in the same league but delivered more than enough laughs, but now we’ve hit a brick wall. Tag has so much going for it, but it’s a huge let down. And that’s no laughing matter.
Tag review by Freda Cooper.
Tag is released in the UK on Friday, 29 June 2018.
