Blame the Game

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.

Being from Belgium, I've watched my share of European movies. This comedy, like many others from the continent, is an acquired taste. Silly and absurd, yet built around a somewhat believable culture clash between city hipsters and gated community yuppies, the film has little action but a lot of cliché-ridden talking. The dialogue will probably get on some people's nerves, but even though the characters are literally a caricature of their own archetype, the babble is quite recognizable and does have a natural flow to it. The actors are actually doing a rather good job, but they have a sort of theatre vibe more than the usual movie appeal.

It may not be my favorite European comedy, or not even my favourite German comedy, but I don't regret watching it on this lazy day. Heck, towards the end I was even cheering for the 'good guy'!

Old jokes and bad acting combined with annoying characters which make it extremely hard to watch it to the end. Completely waste of time. Can't think of how someone would come to the idea to write a script and make a movie out of such an idea! The only character someone maybe identify can is Jan, the rest of the characters are either boring, unrealistic or just plain unpleasant to watch. Everything you see in this movie has been shown in much better ways a thousand times before in other movies! Worst scene ist two men playing naked table tennis while annoying woman making stupid jokes all the time.....

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....

It's an art form to make such a bad, incredibly boring movie. It's supposed to be a comedy and it's more like a really awful drama. Seven good actors from Germany, a) can't read a script, b) thought it must be cool to be in a Netflix movie that doesn't even have a storyline. If you want to make an evening of total boredom hell, then have fun with the worst Netflix movie of the year.

Dennis Mojen meets and falls for Janina Uhse in the most generic way possible. Anyways, she taks him along for a game night with her friends and everything goes wrong. Sound good, right? Well, except neither the script or the rotten direction could make anything of the movie. Worst part was, there is NO love relation between the main charakteres!.

Save yourself a night.