One of my most anticipated movies of 2018, “Tag” is based on a true story of a group of friends who managed to stay in touch for decades by engaging in a game of tag. Playing the game since they were kids, and finding ways to be in other’s lives for the sake of playing the game and one upping each other, current “it” player Hoagie begins gathering his group of friends for one more big game of Tag. It seems their friend Jerry is retiring from the game, and in all the years they’ve played he’s never once been tagged. Now with Jerry about to get married, the group takes it upon themselves to take advantage and end his streak once and for all.
“Tag” has such a unique and original premise that captures the raucous mood of the game it celebrates, and Jeff Tomisic utilizes the ensemble well. I was even surprised to see Isla Fischer return to the comedy fold once again, stealing many scenes as Ed Helms’ over competitive and aggressive wife. “Tag” is played with the amount of intensity we expect, and they reconnect less over old stories and more on their common motivation to beat Jerry once and for all. Though most of the movie is about how they can outwit one another, mainly “Tag” revolves around devising ways to snag Jerry. This is difficult as Jerry is a fitness guru with quick reflexes who also knows his friends better than they do. The movie keeps the whole scenario from going stale with some very creative scenes, including Hoagie masquerading as an old woman, and Jerry’s quick inner monologues as he strategizes methods to avoid being tagged.
Tomisic allows for every cast member to shine at least once and they derive some good laughter, from Buress’s dead pan one liners, to Jon Hamm who plays a corporate executive who will do anything to avoid being tagged. Along for the ride is Rebecca Crosby (Annabelle Wallis), a Wall Street reporter who is so fascinated by the ritual that she follows the group around chronicling the game. Her addition is quite clever, as she serves as a means of relaying information to the audience without the film stopping mid-way to deliver exposition or rules. Sadly, around the mid-way point “Tag” just falls apart, zeroing in more on the slapstick comedy and less on character development. If these people know one another well, I wish the script would have given us time to know them, too. “Tag” suffers from some distracting narrative and tonal problems, jumping back and forth from broad comedy to bittersweet drama comedy back and forth.
It wants to base the premise around how these people have grown and changed, but none of it ever comes in to play. There was potential to engage deeper in to these characters motives and dynamics, and I would have loved to learn if they were friends where it counted. I also was dissatisfied with the climax as everything is literally left up in the air without resolution. Granted, Tomisic grants us a look at the actual people that engaged in this decades long game of tag, but I was interested in finding out how these characters fared. “Tag” ends up being a pretty good comedy. It’s not great by any means, but it’s a pretty good movie that didn’t leave me filled with regret for investing time in it. With the state comedy movies are in, pretty good is acceptable for me.