Blame the Game 2024 Movie Review

This German romantic comedy remains engaging for a grand total of ten minutes. The initial ten. Following that, Blame the Game (Spieleabend) ploughs through a mountain of unfunny done-to-death tropes. A new love interest being put through the ringer by the close friends’ group, inquisitive and leading questions to ascertain his true intentions, a possessive ex “accidentally” showing up to gathering, it’s all so, so bad to watch. Everything unfolds on a sacred games night, to which Jan (Dennis Mojen), Pia’s (Janina Uhse) new boyfriend, is invited. There’s a discernible class difference between Jan and the rest of them, as Pia’s friends are uber rich, with the hosts Karo (Anna Maria Mühe) and Oliver (Axel Stein) living in the upscale locality of Berlin’s Grunewald. Jan runs a bicycle store with his best friend, Alex (Edin Hasanovic). Pia is a photographer who specialises in taking shots of pets. It is at the park that they end up meeting one another, through their respective dogs.

Competitive games night among friends, notwithstanding, every single frame that unfolds once Pia and Jan head over to Karo’s comes right out of the predictable playbook. A nervous Jan, attempting to make a favourable impression, brings a gift and a game along (both recommendations from Alex). The gift, an airbag to protect cyclists in a crash, inflates of its own volition around Karo’s head and neck, almost choking her. Jan’s game is barely given a second thought and is tossed aside. The group is fixated on Jan’s limited knowledge of board games, instead; he says Settlers of Qatar instead of Catan, with Oliver quick to correct him. Let the judgement begin! What a god-awful start to the night, you’d say. Surprise, surprise. Everything has to go awry for things to be interesting, right? Wrong! Ingenious writing is the primary aspect that makes for interesting viewing. The issue here is not about things going wrong, it’s the cliched manner in which they do that’s the problem. Blame the Game just mashes up romcom highlights from a variety of films of the past. Even if the scenes themselves may not be lifted, the underlying themes are anything but unfamiliar. The “appearance” of Matthias (Stephan Luca), Pia’s ex, takes the cake. His desperate attempts to show Jan his place is annoying to sit through. He keeps trying to one up his “rival” by bringing up their romantic travels across the world (with pictures, no less) and his oh so successful dental practice. At one point, he is requested to sing and play the guitar. We get how jealous you are. Now, give it a rest. In all this overdone nonsense, it is revealed that Pia and Matthias were engaged before they broke up. The big conflict moment in the subpar narrative, it appears. The worst moment of the film, by far, is a nude table tennis match between the Jan and Matthias, the battle royale to impress a visibly irritated Pia. The vanquished must down an entire bottle of hot sauce. At this point, a bottle of hot sauce would be something to consider for a member of the audience as an alternative to the onscreen events.

Bland group dynamics are revealed, as we go along. Karo and Oliver are having marital problems, with the former very invested in her career, and clearly the more successful partner of the two. Oliver spends an inordinate amount of time with their au pair. Sheila (Taneshia Abt) is still obsessing about her ex-girlfriend, a break-up she refuses to acknowledge, even after six months. Kurt lives with Karo and Oliver, much to the latter’s chagrin. Jan accidentally frees Oliver’s beloved parakeet while looking for the bathroom, because why not? Might as well screw up like a boss when your beau’s tightknit squad is judging you left, right and centre. The whole plotline of Alex making it to Grunewald to help Jan save face, only to create more confusion, is just tedious. All the attempted slapstick gags fall flat.

The only redeeming quality of the film is its introduction, when Jan and Pia meet at the dog park, strike up a conversation, and eventually get together. It transitions seamlessly, with their respective dogs being the connecting factor. That part of the narrative, all of ten minutes, give or take, is simple and endearing. Once you let that bit go, you’re clutching for straws. What you are left with is a highly ineffective and humourless romcom trying hard to fit in. If the actors were given a better script, who knows what they might have been able to pull off? Replete with cliches from start to finish, Blame the Game sinks almost as it begins. Don’t blame the game, blame the screenwriters. For an absolute waste of 90 minutes, that would have been the more appropriate title.