Buddy Games

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.

The story is just too juvenile to be a celebration of brotherhood. The jokes are not funny.

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.

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.

If you were hoping for a fun/funny movie akin to The Hangover or Tag (which it's obviously ripping off heavily), look somewhere else. I kept hoping for some redeeming quality somewhere in this movie. It doesn't exist. There is nothing remotely believable in this flick. The humor is forced and doesn't flow naturally and most of the friends seem to hate each other.