Tag
Starring: Ed Helms, Jon Hamm, Jake Johnson, Hannibal Burress, Jeremy Renner
Directed by: Jeff Tomsic
Rated: R
As you get older, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep in touch with friends from the past. From busy job schedules, to family lives, to moving: life intervenes and friendships change through the years. What if there was a guaranteed way to keep a group of friends together, no matter what? What if I told you it was through, as crazy as it sounds, a game of Tag?
Based on a true story, Tag is about a group of friends who take the month of May to travel across the country to see each other, catch up, and play an intense game of Tag. The purpose of this year's game is for the friends to team up and tag Jerry (Jeremy Renner) who has never been tagged in 30 years of playing. Will they succeed or fail?
I can tell you this movie failed in providing its cast with good material. When you have a cast with Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Ed Helms, and Isla Fisher...you should be set up for success. Somehow this movie is still bad. How do you fail with this cast? How do you look at the face of Don Draper and tell him to run around, tag people, and fall down for a whole movie? The Mad Men fan in me is raging right now. Tag is proof that some true stories shouldn't be adapted to film.
There are so many issues with Tag, but one of the most obvious is its deeply repetitive script. After getting the sense of deja vu a few too many times, I realized the movie was just recycling the same scene over and over. It went a little something like this:
Friends hide out. Get ready to tag Jerry
Jerry senses his friends' presence without ever seeing them
Someone runs towards Jerry to Tag him. He smiles maniacally then dodges them completely
Friend falls on their face
Jerry beats them up
Other friend tries to tag Jerry
Jerry avoids the tag, then beats up that friend
Guy sitting in the theater next to me is coughing from laughing too hard
Repeat this exact scene in a different location in 10 minutes
You see, no one can tag Jerry because he has superhero movie powers. Or should I say, super villain? At a certain point I wondered, who would be friends with this psychopath? The lengths he will go to not get tagged are downright evil. He chloroforms his friends to avoid tagging. To that I say: call the cops, file a restraining order. Get that toxicity out of your life.
(I also feel bad for the guys this movie was based on considering nothing even close to that ever happened in real life. Imagine watching a movie about your life and the screenwriters randomly throw in that chloroform was involved. The rest of your life you have to clear up that didn't happen "Just want to say that I NEVER chloroformed anyone in our friendly game of tag.")
Tag attempts to balance the tone of a slapstick bro comedy and a heartwarming coming-of-age movie about the importance of friendship. It struggles finding its identity between these two tones, especially when throwing in a random dramatic twist at the end. A cast this talented should be working in a hilarious comedy, not something devoid of laughs. My advice is to avoid this game.
My Rating: 4/10