A movie about grown men playing tag for 30 years is really what childhood dreams are made of.
The madness and intensity of this game of tag has only grown over the years, and is based on the true story that was published in the Wall Street Journal. Without being familiar with the original story, the game of tag takes on a life of its own, and stretches your imagination. The group of men, played by Ed Helms, Jake Johnson, Hannibal Buress, Jon Hamm, and Jeremy Renner, get into ridiculous situations during the month of May to ensure they’re not “it.”
The game takes them to a plethora of different locations, where they wreak havoc, breaking windows and destroying private property, all in the name of tagging their buddy who has never been tagged.
The movie takes on many twists and turns, and I thought it would be full of belly-aching laughter watching grown men chase each other around.
The story of this game of tag lasting more than 30 years is impressive, but I think my favourite part of the movie was in the credits, with the actual footage of the original game of tag. The original group in the true story consisted of nine boys who grew into adulthood playing tag for decades, but the movie only features five.
The movie has quite a few hilarious moments, a few touching moments, and a million things that might be added in for shock value. The movie has quite a bit of a “boy’s club” attitude to it, as the girls basically sit on the sidelines, helping out where they can even though they have been explicitly told the game is for “boys only.”
At the end of the movie though, they build an amendment in the final scene to allow the girls to play, even just for the last minute of the movie. How lame would it be if they just kept sitting there watching while a bunch of grown men ran around playing tag?
All in all, the movie had some good parts, but it lacked character development and depth that could have helped it along. It was trying too hard to be shocking and funny, but it was a good way to spend a couple hours on a rainy night.
I’ll give Tag three out of 10 popcorns.
