À trop jouer

Blame the Game (2024) German language Netflix. Pia brings her new boyfriend to her monthly games night with a bunch of friends.

What could go wrong?

The new boyfriend Jan is a down to earth bloke who runs a bike shop, sadly Pia's friends are somewhat pretentious.

Social awkwardness and snobbery come to the surface, with all of the groups personal foibles and secrets exposed to the new player.

If you have ever been to a games night in which adults resort to, let's be fair puerile and childish behaviour. You'll know that they can be frightfully embarrassing and tedious in the extreme.

Jan is in this predicament.

After much tomfoolery and jolly japes this unlikable bunch of dice throwing morons live to throw their collective dice again.

If you have never experienced a games night as an adult you too can experience the utter embarrassment of not knowing your Jimmy Tesco from yer Van Morrison, or the utter devastation of losing at RISK, with allies and allegiances being broken at the drop of Napoleon's "bicorne" (hat). Sadly the interpersonal battles in the film do not commence on a roll of a dice or an undeclared mission card but over the whims of a group of neurotic and pretentious tossers pontificating over wine and fine cheeses.

Worse still the ultimate humiliation in losing at freckles or soggy biscuit. Soggy biscuit, the only time a premature ejeculation is a good thing.

After what is a great premise for a film it soon becomes pretty boring and thankfully tedious, pretty much like a games night when no one is likely to win throwing the board up in air the along with cards and pieces is the most dignified way to end the torture.

PS I can't wait for my next games night.

5/10....

Like many others, I got scammed by Netflix saying this movie is top 10 in tens of countries. So I watched it, expecting original or good comedy. It was dull and bland as hell. I felt like I've seen this movie a hundred times. There's absolutely nothing original in the script. The movie also tries many kinds of humour (slapstick, gross...etc) but nothing really lands. The movie is also frustrating because the characters don't behave like normal human beings. It takes you out of the movie.

If this is the best Netflix can offer, I'm seriously concerned about the exigence of people nowadays. Please don't encourage this.

On netflix usa, it's blame the game .. in german, "spieleabend"... which roughly translates to game night! A german film, dubbed into english for the united states market. After a chance meeting, jan and pia really hit it off, and have a thing going. Now, jan is meeting pia's friends at game night. But when jan let's a pet bird escape, it starts a chain of events where things just go from bad to worse. Of course, if he had just told the truth about letting it out, everything might have gone better. But people never tell the truth in films. And now, pia's friends are ganging up on poor jan. I would have just left. Jan is such a nice guy, he doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. The film is okay. It's a lot of silly events that we have to buy into. The acting is fine. It's just painful to watch a group gang up on someone like that. And some of the voices in the dubbing are just way over the top. It all ends just fine, but we have to go through a lot of painful events to get there. Directed by marco petry.

What a tremendous waste of time...

At the beginning, it seems like a cute movie, in the romantic comedy style. By the middle of the movie, you already feel the urge to stop watching so as not to waste more time. But this urge battles with the expectation that it might get better. However, that's not what happens, quite the opposite. The movie takes on a ridiculously comic personality, even becoming vulgar. Don't waste a minute on it. In fact, I think even for teenagers, this movie is garbage. The plot is thin, the characters are shallow, and the humor is forced. It's almost painful to watch, and you keep hoping it will improve, but it just gets worse.

Plot

A young man meets his new girlfriend's friends for the first time at their regular game night, putting him under pressure to make a good impression. But then suddenly, her ex shows up as well.

Cast

Stars Dennis "Into the Night" Mojen and Janina Uhse who though I was unfamiliar with I was very impressed here.

Verdict

Blame the Game (Spieleabend) is an attempt at a goofy comedy, the trouble is it fails as much as it succeeds. You see it's so incredibly, remarkably, emphatically, undeniably awkward and I mean that both intentionally and unintentionally.

It begins charming and sweet with almost a 1990's romantic comedy throwback feel, then it slumps almost to American Pie (The spinoffs) level daftness and then before you can say escaped parrot it's gone into cringe inducing attempts at humour and themes as a whole.

Furthermore the characters are terrible, I don't mean badly written I just mean terrible human beings but they're supposed to be "Quirky". They're not, they're bad people and therefore it's impossible to root for them and they damage every scene they're in (Which is the vast majority).

The film all comes together at the end competently enough and ends on a high, but the journey there was filled with few laughs and a lot of uncomfortable moments.

Rants

What happened to game nights? They just don't seem to be a thing anymore, or is it just me? Board games are still a huge industry, I mean just look at the price of the things! And yet I never hear about anybody doing game nights outside of the occasionally AD&D group. I'd love to be part of a regular one, but I don't have friends! Oh wait maybe I've just answered my own question!

The Good

Janina Uhse A couple of chuckles

The Bad

Mostly unfunny Makes for a very awkward viewing in places Dreadful characters Some illogical writing decisions.