To spice up their relationship, Max and Annie host a game night once a week. When a friend suggests a murder mystery night with fake thugs and federal agents, Max's brother Brooks is kidnapped for real. Suddenly the players don’t know what’s part of the game and what’s actually serious.

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Jason Bateman is probably one of the most eclectic American actors, able to deliver great performances in both the Horrible Bosses movies and the much more dramatic Ozark Netflix series. In Game Night, the actor combines both sides of his talent in a great bit of fun. With an impressive cast including Rachel McAdams, the all-too rare Kyle Chandler and the disturbing Jesse Plemons, Game Night is a small gem of silliness, packed with a caustic humor and hilarious slapstick.

But beyond its absurd jokes, the movie benefits above all from very effective and even ingenious staging in certain scenes, such as during a chase in a luxury villa where each character is followed intermittently in a technically impressive sequence shot. While the movie is directed by the duo Goldstein-Daley, this technique is undoubtedly the work of Bateman himself, who was initially the director of the project before handing it over and whose talent as director was already proven in Ozark. It's a shame, however, that his technical imprint is not visible throughout the feature, which despite beautiful action scenes and an effective script too often lacks rhythm.