Mark Reviews Movies: TAG

Become a fan on Facebook Follow on Twitter

Review by Mark Dujsik | June 15, 2018

It's a standard but very efficient cliché among film critics to say that a movie based on a true story would have been better off as a documentary. This is especially true when it comes to a movie that shows footage of the actual people and/or events that were portrayed in said movie. I won't be deterred by that observation to say that Tag, a shallow and occasionally mean-spirited comedy about a group of friends who have been playing a game of tag for about 30 years, would have been better as a documentary.

There's a specific reason for saying that, though. We get to see the real men who, at the time a national newspaper published an article about them, had been playing the same game of tag for over 20 years. There's nothing noteworthy about these guys, and after seeing the elaborate choreography of director Jeff Tomsic's interpretation of how grown men would play tag, there's nothing special about the way the real people play the game. We see them donning disguises, hiding around corners, or showing up when the target least expects it, but we also see them with big smiles on their faces while doing it. When they're tagged, these men laugh in surprise, admiration, and genuine affection for the friend who got the drop on them.

The same can't be said of the characters in this movie, "inspired by" by that true story but obviously not inspired by the spirit of the participants of the real, decades-spanning game of tag. These guys seem to have it out for each other. Sure, a couple of them talk about how the game has kept them together all these years, long after one would imagine childhood friends would go their separate ways.

To what end does it keep them together, though? In the movie's first chase, two grown men sprint around and through an apartment complex, running into bystanders and ending with one of the men taking a nasty, two-story fall. After getting up from the hard landing, another friend runs up and tackles the guy to the ground. What's a concussion or a couple of broken bones among friends?

To be fair, Tomsic's approach to the hijinks is almost cartoon-like, which is fine for, well, cartoons. Rob McKittrick and Mark Steilen's screenplay (based on a Wall Street Journal article by Russell Adams) isn't about cartoon characters, though—even if these characters are so underwritten that they might as well be. The movie wants us to simultaneously view these characters as flesh-and-blood representations of middle-aged vulnerability and as sometimes-literal punching bags, constantly to be beaten, smashed, and pulverized. The filmmakers are far more interested in their characters in that second mode.

The players are Hogan (Ed Helms), Bob (Jon Hamm), "Chilli" (Jake Johnson), Kevin (Hannibal Buress), and Jerry (Jeremy Renner). They've been friends since childhood, and since going about with their own lives, they've devoted the entire month of May each year to playing tag—traveling across the country to reunite and catch their playmates off-guard. Whoever is "it" at the stroke of midnight marking the first day of June is the loser. All of this is related to a reporter (played by Annabelle Wallis), who is interviewing Bob about his business when Hogan tags him, goes along on the cross-country trip to be told the story, and then, having no other purpose to serve, slides into the background.

Jerry has never been tagged, but this year, Hogan has a plan to finally get him. The undefeated champion is getting married, and since his bride-to-be Susan (Leslie Bibb) has a tradition of May weddings in her family, this is the perfect opportunity to tag Jerry. After all, who would be a big enough jerk to interrupt wedding traditions just to play a childish game?

The answer, apparently, is this group of buddies, along with Hogan's wife Anna (Isla Fisher), who's ruthlessly competitive. Ruthless here, by the way, means that Anna is willing to torture one of Jerry's employees in order to discover where he might be caught by surprise. Other "funny" jokes include an extended running gag about Susan possibly having a miscarriage, followed by Chilli repeatedly saying that, if she didn't, he hopes that she does one day. Most of the comedy features Jerry dodging, hitting, and, in one scene, scalding his buddies after their plans to ambush him fail.

The actors are just targets for physical abuse and mouthpieces for the occasional line about friendship (leading to a third-act reveal that tries to tug on heartstrings but just gives up after a couple of minutes). Tag possesses an amusing premise, but beyond the pratfalls and violence, it's obvious that the filmmakers have little idea what to do with this story.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products

Buy the Soundtrack (Digital Download)

Buy the DVD

Buy the Blu-ray