Friday, June 15, 2018

'Tag', A Bad Bromance

You mean to tell me, we're in our FORTIES?
The creators of Tag really want us to know their film is based on a true story, mentioning that fact in the trailer, the poster, and the film's opening credits. And in the broadest sense, it is. (The true story actually involves a larger, older, and whiter group of men.)

I'm not sure if knowing there actually are middle-aged men out there playing Tag makes the movie's concept seem less or more stupid, but that's one of Tag's problems. It wants to recognize the sheer bizarreness of grown men playing Tag, while also couching it in some cloying messages about friendship and the death of youth.

Hoagie (Ed Helms) is the self-proclaimed leader of the man-boys. After learning their friend Jerry (Jeremy Renner) is getting married, without inviting any of the Tag clan to the wedding, Hoagie sees it as the perfect opportunity to finally corner and tag the elusive and never-tagged Jerry, and ropes in businessman Bob (Jon Hamm), divorced slacker and perpetually stoned Chili (Jake Johnson), and the reliably deadpan Sable (Hannibal Buress).

The continuous game started when they were in junior high, and has a few rules. It only takes place during the month of May; there's no safe spaces, so you just might get tagged at funeral; whoever is tagged at the end of that month is "It" for the rest of the year; and no girls. That last rule is why Hoagie's ultra-competitive wife Anna (a manic Isla Fisher) can never actually play, although she's ruthless in helping and rooting for her husband.

We also learn amendments can be added to the rules, which is how the gang eventually gets themselves invited to the rehearsal dinner for Jerry and his future wife, Susan (Leslie Bibb): no tagging during the dinner, ceremony, or reception.

That still leaves plenty of opportunities to tag Jerry, and the means he goes through to avoid it are the film's better moments. Jeremy Renner may not have actually played Jason Bourne in 2012's The Bourne Legacy, but he's basically playing him here, setting up elaborate ruses, fighting off stealth attacks, and roping in utility players to act as decoys. These moments, in all their slo-mo glory, are not the least bit realistic, and in real life would likely result in, hospitalization, paralysis, or death. But Jerry's almost supernatural abilities can be fun to watch.

Also fun is some of the more relaxed banter between the guys, particularly between Hannibal Buress and whomever he may be speaking to at any given moment (and often, it's just to himself). But it's not enough. Most of the film is the equivalent of running in circles, which is the epitome of predictable. And an attempt to turn earnest near the end doesn't have the effect it should since up to that point the gag has been never knowing if anything is truth, or just an elaborate means to avoid getting tagged. Tag may be based on true story, but it fails to get real.


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