Bookshelf Battle

Tag, you’re it, 3.5 readers.

BQB here with a review of “Tag.”

I love it when a movie pleasantly surprises me.  Going into this, I expected a fairly standard to possibly mediocre comedy.   I didn’t expect anything great or terrible, just something to pass the time.

I was wrong.  This movie is a laugh riot and who knew that Jeremy Renner had comedy chops.  Not this guy.  That’s who.

Renner, Jon Hamm, Ed Helms, Hannibal Buress and Jake Johnson star as a group of friends who have been playing the same game of tag every May since childhood.  While they were kids, simply running around the neighborhood whilst slapping each other was fine, but now that they are adults and men of means, they resort all kinds of tricks, schemes, antics and shenanigans to trick each other into getting tagged.  From wacky costumes, to elaborate set-ups and even downright lies, nothing is sacred as these pals try to one up each other.

Renner plays the king of the tag game, having never, ever once been tagged.  To tag him is the holy grail of the game, and as his wedding approaches, the tag posse see an opportunity, not to be there for their best bud on his big day….but to give him the tagging he so richly deserves.

Isla Fisher stars as Helms’ foul-mouthed wife who takes the game more seriously than her hubby, pushing her man to engage in all kinds of hi-jinx to tag their long time adversary.

Meanwhile, Annabelle Wallis stars as Rebecca, a Wall Street Journal reporter who is so taken aback by the silliness that she follows the group in order to report on their taggings.

Interestingly enough, the movie is actually based on a Wall Street Journal article about a real life group of friends who kept a game of tag going from youth well into adulthood.

The movie’s motto is “You don’t stop playing when you get old, you get old when you stop playing,” and ironically, the game gives the friends, who all live in different parts of the US, to drop what they are doing every May and seek one another out.  How sad that friendships blossom in youth only to require an excuse to continue in adulthood, but alas, that’s the way life goes.

Very funny.  Made me bust a gut several times.  Renner is hilarious as he takes down his would be tag assailants with expert precision and extreme prejudice.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy.