Game Over, Man! is a 2018 American action comedy film directed by Kyle Newacheck, written by Anders Holm, and starring Holm, Adam DeVine, and Blake Anderson, all of whom previously collaborated on the sitcom Workaholics. It follows three down-on-their-luck housekeepers who must save the day when the Los Angeles hotel where they work is taken hostage. The film was released on March 23, 2018 on Netflix, but was panned by critics.
Plot
Three friends, Alexxx, Darren, and Joel "Baby Dunk", work as housekeepers at a luxury hotel in Los Angeles and seize an opportunity to pitch their idea to potential investor Awadi, the Bey of Tunisia. The Bey offers the trio a check, but the hotel manager quickly confiscates it and fires them.
Moments later Awadi is taken hostage by terrorists, alongside everyone else in the hotel. The inexperienced trio narrowly escape the terrorists; meanwhile the Bey is forced to share details for an offshore account allowing the terrorists' hacker to drain the funds. As the trio attempt another escape, they inadvertently crash into the security room, happening to thwart the hacking.
Bey Awadi's personal attaché Ahmad is revealed to be the mastermind behind the terrorist siege. He gets on television demanding $500 million, proceeding to kill one hostage every 15 minutes until his demands are met.
Seeking revenge on the trio, one terrorist captures and tortures them in the hotel spa. They attack and kill him, then rig his body with a version of their invention, a remote-controlled power suit. Sending him into the conference room as an initial attack, the trio then enter with automatic weapons.
Ahmad receives a getaway helicopter, and the trio appear on the roof, apparently carrying the ransom money. They trade the money for Bey Awadi, and as the helicopter departs, we learn the trio smuggled explosives onboard. One of the surviving hostages offers the trio a lucrative video game development deal.
On June 9, 2016, Netflix announced that it was producing Game Over, Man! with producers including Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, and James Weaver via their Point Grey banner; and Scott Rudin and Eli Bush via Scott Rudin Productions. The list of producers also includes Adam DeVine, Anders Holm, Blake Anderson, and Kyle Newacheck, who collectively form the comedy group Mail Order Comedy, as well as Isaac Horne of Avalon Management.[2][3]
Game Over, Man! has been met with a generally negative response from critics. On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an 18% approval rating with an average rating of 3.6/10 based on 17 reviews.[6]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 32 out of 100 based on 8 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[7]
In a negative review, Glenn Kenny of The New York Times said, "This almost laugh-free comedy...is distinguished by a relentless level of outrageous yet strangely listless vulgarity."[8] In a similarly negative review, Variety's Monica Castillo said "Game Over, Man! is a movie with few original ideas, plenty of tropes, and not enough love for the Bill PaxtonAliens character who made its eponymous catchphrase popular."[9]Indiewire's David Ehrlich was more mixed saying, "Game Over, Man! becomes to Workaholics what Keanu was to Key & Peele — a sporadically funny riff on a formula that worked much better in small doses. You know it’s a Netflix joint, because it almost feels designed to be half-watched in the background; an overly loud piece of muzak."[10] In a somewhat positive review, Michael Rechtshaffen of the Los Angeles Times said "The guys occasionally over-reach for irreverence, director and fellow Workaholics veteran Kyle Newacheck mainly succeeds in delivering the most defiantly outrageous farce since Borat."[11]
