Ed Helms, Jon Hamm, Jake Johnson and Hannibal Buress are sitting at a bar arguing, as Annabelle Wallis looks on. The guys, in their roles for the upcoming comedy Tag, aren’t debating the usual saloon-based topics, like politics, sports or sex; instead, the subject under discussion is a children’s game known as tag – and how they can outsmart an unseen compatriot, Jerry, who is the undisputed tag champion, having never been, well, tagged by his friends in three decades.
The fired-up quartet is busy plotting every move in their desperate odyssey to unseat Jerry as the game’s crown prince. To a visitor watching the scene unfold, it soon becomes apparent that they’re wildly overthinking their “strategy” – to the point of increasingly nonsensical ramblings – to trap Jerry in his own home. Is it too obvious a location to tag him? Or is it so obvious that the devious Jerry will embrace the obviousness and be there? Or will the obvious obviousness keep Jerry away?
It becomes a hilariously circular thesis from which the five actors are mining comedy gold on the Tag set at an actual tavern in the Atlanta, Georgia suburb of Sandy Springs. The principal cast has never before collaborated, but their camaraderie and chemistry are undeniable to all, as they ad lib and deconstruct their characters’ freewheeling plan of action.
It looks to be an intimate, hilarious and key moment in the no-holds-barred comedy from New Line Cinema, based on the outrageously true story of a group of friends who maintain a lifelong bond through their extreme, insane and take-no-prisoners yearly game of tag. While the scene today is marked by dexterous verbal humor, the filmmakers promise a comedy like few others, rich with physical gags and elegant stunt choreography, as well as a childlike silliness and grounded character moments – all to celebrate the unbreakable bonds of friendship.
As we observe multiple and varying takes of the scene, it becomes clear that for the longstanding friends in TAG, it’s more than just a game. It speaks to their fierce determination to keep their childhood friendship and competition intact – at all costs.
Tag review
In the bar, bustling with cast and crew, and which the production has renamed The Sandpiper, a small poolroom becomes a makeshift interview / conference area, where we meet with several members of the cast and filmmakers. First up is co-screenwriter/producer Mark Steilen, who based his screenplay on the real-life “Tag Brothers,” whose wild antics were documented in two stories published in The Wall Street Journal. “It was about a group of guys playing Tag for over two decades, and I was friendly with some of their families,” Steilen tells us, as a new camera set-up unfolds only a few feet away. “They were getting tagged at work…and in bed. Nothing was off limits. One of the guys popped out of the trunk of a car, frightening the wife of another tag player, and she fell to the ground and broke her leg.”
Clearly, the story of the crazed tagging efforts and friendship amused and resonated with Steilen, who adds that his best friend, to this day, “is a guy who used to sit next to me on my front lawn – when we were infants.”
As some extras enjoy a few rounds of pool, producer Todd Garner joins us, relaying further stories of the infamous Tag Brothers, which inspired the film’s comic lunacy and action. “I mean, it’s weird that somebody would crawl through a window to tag a close friend,” he says, adding, “It’s even weirder that the same guy tagged his friend again when his wife was giving birth.”
Those incidents led Steilen and co-screenwriter Rob McKittrick to devise even more extreme scenarios, and director Jeff Tomsic to create and capture some next-level and over-the-top tag sequences, each with its own personality and action. While focused on the scene he’s orchestrating today, Tomsic is eager to share with us some of the elaborate running, diving, dodging, evading, trapping and chasing that audiences will soon experience. “I want TAG to feel both real and ridiculous, fun and intense,” he tells us. To that end, he’s designed several tag scenarios, peppering in elements from iconic action movies such as Rambo, the Bourne films, Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, Predator and even The Evil Dead.
Each of the action set pieces is centered on Jeremy Renner as Jerry, a mix of Olympic athlete, Harry Houdini and stealthy super-spy – and the subject of the relentless pursuit of his longtime pals Hoagie (Helms), Callahan (Hamm), Chilli (Johnson) and Sable (Buress). Renner’s innate athleticism, as seen in The Avengers films, the Mission: Impossible pictures and in The Bourne Legacy, will be on full display as Jerry. Tomsic takes it even further: “Jeremy as Jerry is a superhero in the world of tag.”
Before being called back to the set, Tomsic describes some additional action beats: “There’s an elaborate scene involving Jerry wielding a tablecloth like a weapon, while narrating his own evasive maneuvers, much like Robert Downey Jr. did in Sherlock Holmes. We shot it in slow motion, which required double of the amount of lighting. You could see the air, it was so hot.”
“As hot as it is here, today?” we ask, noting that the thermometer is topping 95-degrees Fahrenheit in Atlanta. “The heat blew out the windows of the building we were filming in,” the director replies.
Another wild action scene involves an intricate cat and mouse game filmed in the sweltering woodland area of Atlanta’s Stone Mountain, where Jerry draws his friends into various traps that Tomsic promises will invoke imagery from a fast and furious cocktail of high-octane films like First Blood, Predator, Deliverance and even the horror classic The Evil Dead – while generating laughs as each tag player is ingeniously captured by their super-agile friend. “The guys are getting badly defeated here, but at the same time they’re elated that they have a friend, Jerry, who makes the game so interesting,” the director adds before stepping away.
After some more in-character strategising and surreal mental gymnastics – and a spirited discussion about the group’s rules of tag, involving how to properly punch someone in the buttocks – the actors take a break, retreating to a small greenroom nestled in another corner of the bar. Acknowledging the challenges and opportunities of the action scenes Tomsic just laid out for us, they’re also eager to dive into the film’s exploration of friendship and how it connects to their own lives. Ed Helms, whose character, Hoagie, is the heart of the game because he’s its most enthusiastic player, loves the notion of friends reconnecting via a wild game from their childhood. “I get it, because I’m in a musical group, The Lonesome Trio, and we’ve all been friends since college.” Moreover, Helms likens TAG to another comedy in which he starred about a group of friends “who bicker and argue, but they really love each other” – The Hangover.
John Hamm, who plays Callahan, an alpha male businessman, tells us that he remains close with friends he’s known his entire life. In a story that could have been a scene in TAG, the Mad Men and Baby Driver star elaborates: “Last year, we all got together in St. Louis, went to a hockey game, and ended up at a friend’s parents’ house. His mom saw us and started crying, ‘This looks like 1989.’”
Jake Johnson, who plays Chilli, a working-class stoner, notes that a longtime friend, Steve Berg, plays Steve the bartender and wannabe friend/fellow tag player within the tightknit gang. “My friends and I don’t play tag but we sit around and mess with each other a lot, like our characters in the film do.”
Hannibal Buress, a noted standup comedian and actor, isn’t as specific about his longtime friends, but offers this tidbit about new pal, Jon Hamm. “During a day off from shooting TAG, I went to the movies and saw Baby Driver, and it was an extreme experience watching Jon play that murderous guy and then go back to work with him.”
When Annabelle Wallis joins us, her excitement about being in an off-the-wall comedy is palpable. “I haven’t done many of these,” says the Peaky Blinders and Annabelle star, who in TAG plays a Wall Street Journal reporter documenting the antics. “So, I had a great time with the guys and reuniting with [The Mummy co-star] Jake Johnson.”
Later, we catch up with Isla Fisher, who plays Helms’ devoted wife, Anna, whom the actress describes as “more badass than the guys and a zealot who takes the game way too seriously” – even though, for now, she’s watching and cheering Hoagie on from the sidelines.
Leslie Bibb portrays Susan, Jerry’s bride-to-be, and a main player in another action set piece – at the couple’s nuptials. Here, too, the Georgia heat offered a major challenge. Bibb elaborates: “I’m wearing this gorgeous wedding dress, so I’m sweating in places I didn’t know had sweat glands. Now I want to burn the dress,” she adds with a laugh.
It’s safe to say that the cast and filmmakers are also turning up the heat – on the action, comedy and heart centered around a simple game they’ve been playing since they were nine years old. “Everyone has memories of running outside with their friends,” Todd Garner reminds us as the day’s filming wraps up. “We hope that TAG inspires you to pick up the phone and call an old friend to whom you haven’t spoken in a while.”
TAG sprints into UK cinemas from 29th June.
