A comedy inspired by a true story – as they’ve highly advertised. Even at the start of the film, ‘Tag’ is dominant is portraying that it is a film inspired off one true and real-life. Although, this doesn’t mean it follows the tales of the same people’s lives or that the facts are set in stone from reality; the whole essence of this film, is based off the fact that the same group of friends have been playing the same game of tag for decades. And please don’t miss the end, it’s got a beautiful part where they actually show video recordings of these real friends playing their magnificent game, surprising each other unannounced.
Introducing the characters of ‘Tag’. Five friends since they were nine have been playing the same game of tag, every May it starts up again and the game can start again. Hoagie, who claims himself as the heart and soul of the game is the one determined to bring them all together. In a surprise visit to his mate’s work, he tags Bob Callahan mid important meeting. Next is to collect Chilli, the weed-headed one, with a cigarette always in his mouth. Finally, Sable, mid therapist meeting. All come together as they are told this could be the year they can finally tag Jerry, the one and only tag-player who has never been tagged. However, only this year Jerry has announced he will be retiring. Along the way, Hoagie’s over-aggressive and over-competitive wife, Anna (Isla Fisher), joins in on the vacation. And reporter, Rebecca, is also determined to follow Callahan to discover what just interrupted their important meeting and why they insist on running around tagging each other.
The actors and actresses are truly great. It’s nice to see Jeremy Renner in a different sort of film, although this film does still contain a bit of action usually because of him. Renner plays the only one never tagged, Jerry. His competitive ways are hilarious and creative, he truly shows the limits he goes to just to not get tagged. Although, his bride-to-be, Susan (Leslie Bibb), I wasn’t a fan, to be honest just a bit psycho and didn’t quite have the charm Jerry did and more really just made me dislike her competitive rude nature. Hoagie played by Ed Helms, was brilliant, he was the over-excitable determined character, nothing would please him more, especially to get all his friends together. Callahan was played by Jon Hamm, also great, and Sable by Hannibal Buress who was hilarious with some of his comments. But Chilli, ‘New Girl’ Jake Johnson, who I love so much, he could literally play any character and I would still love him. He was comical with his pessimistic nature in his divorce and broke state. Comical when he doesn’t really know the right way to say things. Finally, the reporter who ‘tagged’ along, sorry (not sorry), Rebecca (Annabelle Wallis), was a great addition as she didn’t understand what was happening, all the things explained to her were therefore being explained to us as we were thrown in quite quickly with the plot. She got told the background of the game, the rules and amendments that could be made etc etc etc. This led to great flashbacks, comical and fun.
I would definitely recommend ‘Tag’, I thought it was a great, hilarious film and I would watch it again, over and over. It also has quite a bit of emotion and background story-telling to it, but it all works and combines with action moments of trying to tag Jerry. The whole film is revolved around Jerry’s wedding and the plotting and scheming to catch him. There were also a variety of camera adventures, for example attached to Chilli as he was running away, which just added to his peril of being caught and desperate need to run away. Or another creative element was hearing Jerry’s thoughts as he figured out where his friends were hiding and explaining how he will fool them and escape as he has so many times before. This all added to the creativity of the whole film. Hilarious film, really enjoyable!
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing”.
Striking Film Reviews 