Be honest — when did you last see your school friends? If you still live close, maybe in recent weeks. If not, make that months, or a year, or a cursory annual Facebook ‘happy birthday’ message. Growing up can also mean growing apart — geographically and emotionally — but it doesn’t have to be that way. A 2013 Wall Street Journal report followed a group of men who found an ingenious way of staying in contact, literally, by continuing a playground round of tag across decades. The game is on for a month every year, and avoiding being ‘it’ by the end of play requires long distance travel and stealthy tactics. It’s a sweet and goofy story, highlighting the importance of male friendship and the need to retain a sense of playfulness amid the stressful trappings of modern masculinity.
In translation from factual article to fictionalised Hollywood comedy, Tag squanders its spirited premise and instead plumps for irritatingly zany man-baby antics that criminally underuse a top cast. It starts promisingly enough, as Hoagie (Helms) — still ‘it’ from the previous year’s game — takes amusingly extreme measures to tag Bob Callahan (Jon Hamm), now a successful businessman. But as the rest of the gang assembles and sets off to catch white whale Jerry (Renner), who’s never been tagged, the jokes fizzle out. Only Hannibal Buress’ low-energy Kevin brings consistent chuckles from what sound like largely-improv’ed lines, and while there’s flair in the John Woo-esque slo-mo tagging sequences, the visual gag is quickly over-used.
When Tag reaches for a serious beat in its final act, it’s far too little too late.
Tag’s real downfall comes as it shifts from lacklustre to offensive and insensitive. For all the true story’s warmth, the friends here are far more invested in the game than in each other — a point which the film rarely and insufficiently interrogates. The group’s commitment to tagging each other at all costs becomes increasingly sociopathic, disregarding each other’s health and wellbeing for the arbitrary game to continue. When the film does reach for a serious beat in its final act, it’s far too little too late.
If the male characters are fleshed out in objectionable ways, the female roles remain paper-thin. Isla Fisher grates as Hoagie’s intense wife Anna, who follows the game but isn’t allowed to play herself, while Rashida Jones is lumped with a two-dimensional part as the old flame of love rivals Callahan and stoner Chilli (Jake Johnson). And then there’s Annabelle Wallis who has the thankless task of playing a Wall Street Journal reporter in Tag’s most unnecessary sub-plot. The article is clunkily shoehorned into the script, hooked on a zero-substance role which requires Wallis to be continually wowed by the gang’s immature antics.
When it comes to comedies about middle-aged school pals who have grown apart but reconnect by rekindling their past adventures, The World’s End did it with more laughs and genuine emotion to boot. A closing montage of footage from the real-life Tag gang has more heart than the preceding 100 minutes combined — reminding us that while the real game continues annually, the prospect of reuniting with these characters for a sequel is decidedly unappealing.
