Movie Review: Tag

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.

 

Then again, the whole movie hits a wrong note. Do we really need yet another celebration of white men who refuse to grow up? The film argues that we need to stay in touch with that inner child to stay young – and fair enough – but there’s a difference between that, and never maturing past the age of 13, which this film seems to celebrate. Maybe that’s why all these men are around 50 (except for Burress, who is oddly more than a decade younger than most of the cast) and seemingly none of them have kids of their own. They’re too busy acting like them still.

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