The Machine hurls Truman and Landen back to 2018, where a perfectly normal adult world briefly stopped to witness a group of grown men sprinting, tackling, and emotionally spiraling through the most intense game of tag ever put to film. As the Machine reminds them, this bromantic stunt-comedy immortalized a real-life tradition—and maybe also proved that your thirties are just gym class with taxes.

Synopsis

Tag is a high-energy buddy comedy starring Hogan Malloy (Ed Helms, The Hangover), Bob Callahan (Jon Hamm, Mad Men), Randy Cilliano (Jake Johnson, New Girl), Kevin Sable (Hannibal Buress, Spider-Man: Homecoming), and Jerry Pierce (Jeremy Renner, The Avengers). Directed by Jeff Tomsic, the film follows a tight-knit group of friends who have spent nearly 30 years locked in a hyper-competitive, anything-goes game of tag—one that threatens to unravel when the ever-untouchable Jerry announces he’s retiring after his wedding.

Blending exaggerated action choreography with a sincere look at male friendship, Tag channels the late-2010s trend of “based on a true story, but played like a cartoon” studio comedies.

Why This Film?

Though it earned modest attention on release, Tag quickly slipped between genres—too heartfelt for pure slapstick, too absurd for straightforward sentiment. It’s a fascinating example of a studio trying to reinvigorate the R-rated comedy market while packaging a very real human-interest story inside blockbuster-style action beats.

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