Buddy Games

Reminded me of Tag, had a good cast, but just couldn't get it going to become something funny. Skip this movie and watch Tag instead.

This is basically the movie "Grown-ups" with a more adult content, minus the families. It made me laugh a couple of times, but as a whole it was pretty predictable. Okay movie to waste your time, but could have been a lot better.

A group of guys are best friends who play their Buddy Games over the years. Shelly (Dan Bakkedahl) is the aggressive alpha male. Bender (Nick Swardson) does something which ends their games. It's 5 years later. Shelly's mother is scared for his mental health and asks Bobfather (Josh Duhamel) to restart the Buddy Games.

I don't like any of these people and that is its biggest problem for a comedy trying to be funny. I don't see Bakkedahl as this alpha male and certainly not without him being a jerk. I understand the comedic premise of making a chubby loser be the alpha of the group. It's not working. There are some attempts at gross out humor which could work if I cared about these guys. Maybe Duhamel should be playing Shelly and Bakkedahl could switch roles. The writing isn't good enough at any rate. It's not going to work even for the best comedians.

I actually was hesitant about starting this, but decided to watch it because of James Roday. I loved him in Psych, so of course this has got to be good. Man, was I wrong.

Every scene ends with you saying "why is this scene in the movie?" until you realize there is no movie, just a bunch of bad scenes arranged in this order for some reason.

Considering the talent involved (I'm talking about the actors, not their thespian skills), this should have been funnier. First time director Josh Duhamel (Las Vergas, Transformers) wrote, produced and directed this film. It all comes across as a bunch of friends making a movie in their garage and laughing at just how funny they are.

Every summer, six friends get together and conduct a sort of frat boys olympics. During one of these summers five years before, one of the men gets permanently injured and the games are halted. Five years later they pick them back up. That's it for plot. There is an attempt to give each character a backstory, but its poorly handled and just feels like someone said, "hey, each guy needs a backstory" without any sort of idea of how these backstories fit into the overall narrative.

Duhamel is Bob, a successful businessman who hosts the Buddy Games of the title and is known as the Bobfather to his mates. Dan Bakkedahl is Shelly, an uber competitive blowhard and the injured competitor. Nick Swardson is Bender, is a shiftless loser and the guy who injured Shelly. Dax Shephard is Durfy, a failed actor. Kevin Dillon is Doc, a lousy doctor. James Roday is Zane, a fitness freak. None of these guys are really likeable or relatable.

The supporting cast is wasted. Olivia Munn (who I adore from her time on The Newsroom) is utterly wasted as Bob's nagging , pushy girlfriend, Tiffany. Neal McDonough (Captain America, Walking Tall) and Jensen Ackles (Supernatural) have small cameos.

There are some funny moments to be sure (Bender fighting with some girls at a lemonade stand and one of the events involving a komono dragon. However, this was all done much better in TAG a few years ago. The Buddy Games is trying to be a combination of Jackass and the Hangover and misses the mark terribly.