A broad studio comedy starring a cavalcade of famous faces is hardly the sort of project you’d expect to come slapped with the ‘inspired by a true story’ branding, especially when the concept of Tag is utterly ridiculous.
Ed Helms, Jake Johnson, Hannibal Buress, Jon Hamm and Jeremy Renner star as a quintet of lifelong friends that have been playing the same game of tag for 35 years, interrupting each other’s lives on an annual basis to keep it going. Renner has never once been ‘it’, so his buddies descend on his wedding in the hopes they’ll finally be able to catch him off guard.
A Wall Street Journal Article published in January 2013 profiled a group of guys from Washington, who’d become local legends for their 28-year tag war that occurred every February, which often saw the various participants traveling across the country, disguising themselves and sneaking around.
It’s a great tale, but the feature film adaptation was lacking a certain spark. It wasn’t the fault of the cast, though, with the leads ably supported by Annabelle Wallis, Isla Fisher, Rashida Jones, Leslie Bibb, Lil Rel Howery and more, but Tag ultimately devolved into formula despite the outlandish and 100% genuine premise.
It did manage to earn $78 million at the box office, even if critics and audiences are in agreement that it’s only worth a 56% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, an incredible rarity on the aggregation site. That being said, Tag has been experiencing a resurgence on streaming over the weekend having reached as high as fourth position on HBO Max’s most-watched list, as per FlixPatrol.
