Daley/Goldstein/Perez's GAME NIGHT: smart, fast, witty, laugh-out-loud Hollywood comedy

TrustMovies has not laughed this much or this consistently throughout a mainstream comedy in a very long time. GAME NIGHT, written by Mark Perez and co-directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (shown below, with Daley on the left), is such fast, smart and clever fun that the only reason it will not be a blockbuster hit is that it's just too fast, smart and clever for our current dumbed-down audiences that seem to prefer those Hangover guys or Bad Mom gals.

The directors and writer have concocted a simply delightful mix of oddball characters, laughs, thrills and surprises that just keep coming and coming. Perhaps the biggest surprise of all is that you never get sated, because so much of this is so witty and genuinely clever. Comedies most often tend to be hit and miss affairs, but if enough of the humor is on-target, the film will pass muster. Praise be, Game Night is almost entirely hit and hit. The humor is one with the surprise and thrills, and there are plenty of all three.

The film's premise is a group of friends -- two couples and their single friend (the very funny Billy Magnussen) who always has a new pretty-girl on his arm -- all of whom love to play games and are extremely competitive. The lead couple and the film's main protagonists are played by Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams (above), and both are, as expected, first-rate. Bateman's glamorous brother (Kyle Chandler, below) is even more competitive, bringing to the plot a twist that sets everything in motion.

Once that plot kicks in (almost immediately), the movie moves so fast that you'll be panting to keep abreast of its twists and turns. The hook here is that you (as well as the characters) can never be sure when an event is part of the game or instead real and therefore maybe life-threatening.

Fortunately the supporting cast is filled with smart and funny actors who juice up the proceedings quite merrily. The sweetly goofy Magnussen (above, left) and curtly acid-tongued Sharon Horgan (above, right, of that great Amazon series, Catastrophe) make a fine pairing, as do the other game night couple, Kylie Bunbury (below, left) and Lamorne Morris (below, right), who unveil their own what-celebrity-did-you-sleep-with? problem as the evening continues.

Best of all, perhaps is that terrifically versatile actor (for starters, compare his work in Other People, The Post, American Made and the USS Callister episode of Black Mirror's fourth season), Jesse Plemons, below, who creates here one of his most indelible and oddly adorable characters as the cop-next-door.

And that's hardly all. No less than Danny Huston, Michael C. Hall and an uncredited Jeffrey Wright pop up in smaller but significant roles. Aside from this crack cast, though, what makes the movie work best is its extraordinarily smart script, in which situations, characters, humor and thrills keep bubbling up and bouncing over each other with consummate agility and ease. "Is it as good as Game Night?" will likely be the new touchstone question asked by intelligent audiences from last week onward.

Arriving one week ago via Warner Brothers and marketed with all the usual non-flair this crass company has for anything that proves a bit different or a cut above, the movie is now playing all around the country and may still be in a theater near you in this, its second week of wide release. Click here to find out.

Streaming: Joe Carnahan's nifty STRETCH gives Patrick Wilson a juicy role -- and he runs with it

Actually, everyone in Joe Carnahan's new movie gets a juicy role, and everyone does a crackerjack job. It's just that Patrick Wilson gives the kind of performance he rarely has the chance to tackle, and he's a delight to watch as he cajoles, pleads, races and gets knocked around some as a limo driver in debt who must suddenly pay that debt by tonight. And Mr. Carnahan, shown below, excels at this kind of fast-paced nonsense (as in Smoking Aces and The A Team).

His new movie, STRETCH, never takes itself too seriously but entertains us like crazy. It's one of those films filled with weird, crazy criminals doing nutty stuff that sort of makes sense if you're living in a word gone utterly loony. And as the movie is set in Hollywood and its environs (it even has nifty cameos by Ray Liotta and David Hasselhoff playing themselves), all this makes more than a little oddball sense. Why a film this much fun never got a theatrical release (or appeared on DVD) is beyond my ken -- the IMDB notes only an "Internet" release this past October -- but here it is now, playing on Netflix streaming for all to see.

In addition to Misters Wilson (above), Liotta and Hasselhoff, the movie features Jessica Alba, below and looking pretty ordinary (yes, this is possible) as the limo service's dispatcher, and Chris Pine (shown at bottom, right) in the major -- but uncredited -- role of the Wilson charac-ter's craziest and richest passenger/client. Both actors are aces, as is everyone down to the smallest role. And there are plenty of small, juicy roles here, too. Screenwriter Carnahan, along with his "story" guys, Jerry Corley and Rob Rose, have let their imaginations run wild to produce a cast of characters that consistently surprise us, while tickling our collective funny bone.

Despite all the evil and would-be ugly goings-on, this is the kind of smart, fast whizzer in which, no matter what might happen, you're pretty much assured that the hero will triumph against whatever odds. So you can relax and just go with the very speedy flow, with the built-in assurance that a very good time will be had by all.

Stretch, which is both the movie's title and the name of our hero, runs a fast 94 minutes and can be seen now via Netflix streaming and elsewhere. (Only the movie's closing credits -- featuring some really crappy, not-very-funny outtakes -- spoil the fun. The movie is such as upper that you should maybe stop watching as those credits start to roll.)