Tag
** / *****
Directed
by: Jeff
Tomsic.
Written
by: Rob
McKittrick and Mark Steilen based on the article by Russell Adams.
Starring:
Jeremy
Renner (Jerry Pierce), Ed Helms
(Hogan “Hoagie” Malloy), Jake Johnson (Randy “Chilli” Cilliano), Jon Hamm (Bob
Callahan), Hannibal Burress (Kevin Sable), Isla Fisher (Anna Malloy), Leslie
Bibb (Susan Rollins), Annabelle Wallis (Rebecca Crosby), Rashida Jones (Cheryl
Deakins), Lil Rel Howrey (Reggie), Nora Dunn (Linda Malloy), Steve Berg (Lou
Seibert), Thomas Middleditch (Dave).
When I watch films like Tag, I am
always reminded of what a bad “guy” I am. Not that I’m a bad guy, but that I’m
bad at doing typical guy things, that even as a teenager I thought were stupid
and immature and not worth my time. Watching Tag, which is a celebration of
never maturing past your teenage (early teenage) years reminds me of why
precisely I would never be involved in a decades spanning game of tag amongst
friends. Mainly because it’s stupid.
To the characters in Tag however,
it isn’t stupid. It’s practically life or death. The premise is simple – this
group of five school friends spend every May resuming a decades old game of tag
that they have been playing. Jerry (Jeremy Renner) has always been the best at
the game – he’s never once been tagged – but now they may just have him
cornered. He’s going to get married this May, and although he neglected to tell
his friends that, they figure it out anyway, and head back to their hometown to
once again try and tag Jerry.
These men are all, supposedly,
respectable guys. Hoagie (Ed Helms) is a doctor, with a good practice, and a
beautiful wife – Anna (Isla Fisher). Callahan (Jon Hamm) is head of an
insurance company. Chilli (Jake Johnson), is a stoner, with presumably a job
doing something, but they don’t get into it. And Sabel (Hannibal Burress) is
the smartest of the lot, perhaps because he’s the only one who seems tired of
this stupid game, yet he goes along with the plan anyway. They get back to
their home town – much to the chagrin of Jerry’s fiancé, Susan (Leslie Bibb),
who always wanted a May wedding – and makes them all promise they won’t ruin
her dream. Oh, and a Wall Street Journal reporter (Annabelle Wallis) is along
for the ride as well – she was supposed to write a serious story about diabetes
and Hamm’s company’s response to it, but who can resist a bunch of middle aged
men acting like idiots?
Me, apparently, as I mainly
though Tag was not very funny and really kind of dumb. Perhaps my biggest
problem with the film is Renner’s Jerry, who really does seem like a big jerk,
even when compared to the others in the group – and whose various acrobatics to
avoid being tagged are just silly, not really funny. You assemble a cast this
good, and somethings are going to land obviously. Isla Fisher is a delight as
always (I really wish she would work more often – and in better movies, because
she is a comic genius). I enjoyed Burress, who is funnier than the rest of the
guys combined, probably because he’s working in a lower key. I do think the
rest of them are underserved – with Helms and Johnson basically asked to play
the same role they’re always asked to play, and Hamm just kind of there. I have
no idea why they included the talented Rashida Jones in the movie – as a former
lover interest of both the Johnson and Hamm characters, who could choose
between the two of them, and then up and married someone else (who is now dead,
so she’s back in play I guess). The sentimentality that comes in late in the
film feels out of sync as well. This is a rude, crude, profanity laced movie in
which there are fake miscarriages, and threats of ejaculating on childhood
treasures, that suddenly turns into something trying to be sweet in the final
minutes. It just hits the wrong note.
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