User reviews

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.

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.

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'!

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.

... hate the game as the saying goes. So no pun intended - on the other hand, the games (the literal ones) are not bad ones. It is the humans who play them and make up new ones (or sometimes even new rules), that ruin ... well the fun those attending and playing them can have.

The movie really wants you to suspend your disbelief - like in a big way to say the least. There are things that I really thought were annoying. And I am not talking about the male nudity (you may like or hate that - up to you ... again no pun intended), but more about the game that is played ... quite "openly".

There is comedy that works and some jokes that don't ... the actors do their best with what they get. The script is decent enough ... but it's also not a masterpiece ... and it is not meant to be ... it is meant to be a fun game night .. not that anything ever goes according to plan ... or plans.

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.....

I've been reading the mostly negative reviews from my fellow reviewers on this movie and I'm going to go out on a limb here and disagree. It's a lighthearted romcom that does its job. Boy dog meets girl dog, boy meets girl, they go to rich girl's game night with her rich annoying friends and mayhem ensues.

There's nudity, loving the new focus on male bodies by the way, makes a change from the endless undressed females, there's sport, bromance, physical danger, birds and an endless skewering of the modern diseases of social media, texting, disconnection and loneliness. Then throw in breast milk, tigers and a bit of neurodivergence and you have the delight of this film. I thought it was hilarious.

Spiecleabend or blame the game is a fun movie. Its dumb in its plot but in a good way. Jan is riding his bike in a park with hid dog. Until he goes off and has sex with another dog. The dogs owner runs as they both do to break them up, which is where he meets pia and the two soon hit it off and its que bedroom time as with a lot of netflix films. Then its game night a tradition for her family and jans friend alex helps him after some mishaps happen. The whole film is just dumb fun really. Nothing too over the top but its was fun to watch. The games were good and the heated compitition with her ex was a load of fun to watch to. Overall just a good comedy.

I thought that it was a good plot idea to make a movie about the many games people like to play in Germany in the evenings... But already after a view minutes the movie felt quite unauthentic and the romance kitschy to me and this didn't change until the end. I felt that some of the characters based on many superficial stereotypes and most of them were portrayed totally over the top in a bad way - over-romantic, over-arrogant, over-stupid. This can be funny, but in this movie the jokes didn't work out for me. The dynamic in the group of friends was very bad. This was because almost everyone was focused on their individualistic life. The storyline is very predictable once you have started to watch it. Unfortunately...

P. S. Please, don't think that all Germans are so arrogant and superficial after this movie.

Wetflix germany is obviously trying to make the lead of this movie a star, a brand. Well maybe they should have chosen someone who can actually act. One feels sorry for this guy. The director also wasn't of much help, it seems.

Also the chemistry with the female lead doesn't work at all, which is fatal for the movie as it is based on their relationship. She appears like his mother.

The story is terribly boring and moved on far too slowly. The characters are so over the top and the acting so exaggerated, even for a comedy, that it's never funny. For a slapstick boulevard comedy, on the other hand, the gags aren't crude enough. Comedy is a difficult genre!

The autistic guy is a bad joke. Just putting on a pair of glasses doesn't make you an autistic person. So bad.

The movie is very german. It's not attacking anyone or anything. Very PC. Trying not to offend anybody. Just flat and timid and without a heart.

Humour is about BREAKING taboos, guys. No guts no humour no fun.

Bad reviews are from superficial viewers in my opinion!

I think it's a decent comic mocking on different society figures...

Bad reviews are from superficial viewers in my opinion!

I think it's a decent comic mocking on different society figures... Bad reviews are from superficial viewers in my opinion!

I think it's a decent comic mocking on different society figures... Bad reviews are from superficial viewers in my opinion!

I think it's a decent comic mocking on different society figures... Bad reviews are from superficial viewers in my opinion!

I think it's a decent comic mocking on different society figures... Bad reviews are from superficial viewers in my opinion!

I think it's a decent comic mocking on different society figures...

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....