Tag

The first thing to note about this movie is that I think we can all agree that the real life story this movie is based on is really cool and a great story about friendship. That sweet story is somewhere in this movie and it peaks its head out from time to time, but in reality this movie made me a little bit angry by the end of it.

First off, don't believe anybody who says this is based on a true story. It is for sure inspired by a true story, there are moments in this movie that are taken from the real life story, but don't think that Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, or Hannibal Burress is based off any real person in particular. They took the story and made a Hollywood film around it. Now that's not a bad thing, again, its a great story and there's a lot of comedic elements you can build around it. But that's what it could be in theory, here's what it is in reality.

Tag stars Jon Hamm, Jake Johnson, Ed Helms, Hannibal Buress as a group of friends who for thirty years have been playing a game of Tag. Every May, they play the game and they never know when the other one is going to show up. They dress up in disguises, chase each other in public, all to keep in touch with one another.

But they have a fifth players named Jerry (played by Jeremy Renner) who has never been tagged 'it'. Their goal throughout the movie is to tag Jerry before he retires from the game.

Along the way there is a reporter from the New York Times (played by Annabelle Wallis) following them around who doesn't add a whole lot to the movie besides someone Hannibal Burress can spout exposition to, and Ed Helm's character's wife is super into the game, even though she doesn't played (she's played by Isla Fisher)

Oh and Rashida Jones is in this film but she's the most pointless character in the entire movie. The only reason I remember her is because I realized she was so utterly pointless. There is a shot in the movie where they just show her smiling and then she's never seen again and she adds nothing to the story besides a "rivalry" between Jon Hamm and Jake Johnson that goes absolutely no where.

I want to talk about the good things about this movie first for two reasons. 1) I feel like I'm REALLY going to rip into this movie later on, and it deserves it, but also 2) I do think there is a good movie hiding in here. The issues could be easily fixed and I'm not sure if its because of the situation this movie found itself in, or just bad writing. But I want to point out what worked first.

One thing that worked for this movie was the school yard antics that these guys clearly don't want to let die.

While there are some out of place whimiscal moments, especially towards the end, it's genuinely funny when these guys are playing Tag and chasing each other. While I wasn't totally sold on all of the friendship or the group dynamic as a whole, there are some genuine exchanges between some of these guys as old friends who just want to be apart of each others lives.

And I think another really great aspect of the movie is the build up to Jerry.

They describe Jerry as the best Tag player there probably has ever been and when we finally see him, it's a lot of fun. Jerry has a sort of Sherlock Holmes inner monologue where he calculates where his friends are coming from, what their moves will be, and what he has to do to avoid getting tagged. It is legitimately funny and leads to some fun scenes.

The comedy, while not perfect and some jokes definitely fall flat, kept me going through the movie and there was a semblance of care I had for these characters... but only a semblance.

Honestly, the best parts of the movie were the parts that they derived from real life. The costumes they use, the methods to chase people down, and especially the situations where the game comes into play they pull from real life are the funniest bits.

There's a montage where they show the unique scenarios where people have been tagged like the birth of a child, a funeral (which was true), and the genuine surprise one of them has when they get fooled or when someone goes an extra length. This should have been the entire movie. But instead they focus it on Jeremy Renner's character's wedding, and this is where a lot of the issues I have with the movie come up.

At the beginning of the film, you kind of get the point of view of Jerry and his fiance (played by Leslie Bibb). Nobody would want their special day ruined by a childish game so it's not unreasonable when they ask to have the game put on hold during certain wedding activities.

But then the rest of the movie portrays these two as just the biggest tools in the world. It doesn't help that Jeremy Renner without any context looks like a douchebag and Leslie Bibb played a controlling bitch in The League, but as the movie progresses, you realize that the way they're written doesn't help that view of them and in fact leans into it too much. A message within the movie is that Jerry isn't as close to the group because he's always running and isn't really apart of the game as much as the other 4, but then there are moments that if the other four didn't proactively go after him, they wouldn't be invited to wedding functions, or the ceremony itself. This just makes Jerry look like an asshole.

But the worst part of the film is the stunt these two pull to make sure Jerry doesn't get tagged. I won't go into it because I've already probably said too much, but they do something in this film that is just a horrible thing to do and they never really get punished for it. We're supposed to just laugh about it and the movie misses a pretty big opening to delve into the heart of the movie and the Jerry's character. Instead, they kind of shake it off, and we're supposed to think that Ed Helms takes it too far by trying to tag Jerry during his wedding.

The movie never really feels comfortable getting too raunchy and when it tip toes over that line of what is funny and what is mean spirited, it falls over into just being too mean spirited.

I'm not totally certain if I think this movie NEEDED to be rated R. I think they could have kept the R rating and just tightened up the heartfelt moments, because a rated R movie can be heartfelt. But I also feel like if they had had some restrictions, maybe they could have created a movie where I related with the characters more, wanted that friendship to be strengthened throughout the film, and the end of the movie felt real, not sort of out of pity.

I'm not opposed to the direction they took the ending, but like I said, Jerry and his fiance are the worst and never really get their comeppuence. The friend group, while not bad, isn't very strong or anything that I will remember down the road. I'll really only remember the scenes where they're trying to tag Jeremy Renner, and the really bad ending. It's not a horrible movie, just a movie I'm disappointed wasn't better.

But those are my thoughts on Tag, what did you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thought on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for future movies I should review. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!