A group of friends reunite to play The Buddy Games, a wild assortment of absurd physical and mental challenges. In the process, they’ll heal old wounds, right past wrongs, and figure out the true meaning of friendship…or die trying.
“Buddy Games” feels like a distant cousin of the 2018 comedy “Tag,” which starred Jeremy Renner, Ed Helms, Jon Hamm, Jake Johnson, and Hannibal Buress and told the true story of a group of friends who started playing tag as kids and kept up the game well into adulthood. “Buddy Games” feels similar and in many ways, it is, the disconnect between friends as they grow older and apart, the need and desire to reconnect, and the yearning for things to be like they once were.
Josh Duhamel stars in and directs “Buddy Games,” his feature film directorial debut, and wisely surrounds himself with an excellent supporting cast including Dan Bakkedahl, Kevin Dillon, Olivia Munn, James Roday, Dax Shepard, and Nick Swardson. Every year, Bobfather (Duhamel) and his five friends Doc (Kevin Dillon), Shelly (Dan Bakkedahl), Zane (James Roday Rodriguez), Durfy (Dax Shepard), and Bender (Nick Swardson), get together for the “Buddy Games,” a crazy competition filled with wacky physical and mental undertakings. Shelly has won the contest every year since its inception and is always overly cocky and arrogant with his annual win but when a paintball prank goes wrong and inadvertently leads to him losing both his testicles, the games come to an abrupt end and the friends grow apart and move on with their separate lives.
A few years later, Shelly’s mother, Mary Ann (Linda Darlow), reaches out to Bobfather and informs him that Shelly is in a bad way after the procedure. Bobfather visits him in his clinic and Shelly states that he wants to start the Buddy Games back up again but that under no circumstances, can Bender be allowed back in, as he is the person responsible for his medical neutering. Bobfather agrees and gets the boys back together but when Bender hears through the grapevine about the friends’ reuniting, he invites himself to the games, putting everyone in an uncomfortable and awkward predicament but when he brings it to everyone’s attention that it wasn’t actually him who caused Shelly’s castration, but Shelly’s now ex-wife Nikki, Shelly initially appears shocked at Bender’s divulgence and accepts his apology and welcomes him back into the group, but he has ulterior motives for winning the games and will stop at nothing in order to do so!
“Buddy Games” is a metaphor for lost friendships, something we all experience as we grow up. Friends, sometimes lifelong ones, grow apart as we move into new jobs, new relationships, new cities, and while we might occasionally reach out to one another on the holidays, the physical connection can never be replaced. I understood fully what the characters were going through, especially since a lot of my closest friends still reside back in Ireland but being together and hanging out like old times, is no substitute for long-distance relationships. The film itself mirrors “Tag” in many ways and while the comradery between the friends is convincing, the relationships in “Tag” were more satisfying. Josh Duhamel has worked with some great directors throughout his career and I feel like it was a good move to let a dramedy be his directorial debut, instead of some crazy, over-the-top action film, as it allowed him to work with his actors, their motivation, and the story itself.
The cast is likable and endearing but I felt like Olivia Munn was wasted in a role that could have been developed more. She is introduced as Bobfather’s girlfriend and is loyal and trustworthy but in the end, when she asks him to marry her, he dumps her and says his friends are more important. If she had been unfaithful or self-centered, I could understand him discarding her from his life but from what we see of her character, she didn’t do anything to deserve that treatment and as a result, Bobfather’s character, who throughout the film comes across as a considerate and charismatic leader, by the end of the movie, turns into an unlikable douchebag, and that’s pretty hard to take. “Buddy Games” is childish, foolish, imbecilic, and, at times, downright absurd, but if you’ve ever had friends like the ones portrayed herein, you’ll completely get this film.
Now available on DVD, Digital, and On-Demand
