I have to be brutally honest with you – I hadn’t even heard of this week’s movie coming to any theater, let alone a streaming service.
But, cue my surprise when I came across Prime Video’s “Playdate” in the hopes of finding something available for watching closer to home during the Thanksgiving holiday.
After watching it from the comfort of my own couch, now I know why I hadn’t heard of it.
The conversational skills of veteran actors comes off like it was written by teenagers who used ChatGPT to do all the work.
I also felt like the majority of the action sequences were a bit nauseating due to how often the camera angles changed abruptly and the car chases were mediocre at best.
Plus, I’ve had to apologize to my sister for wasting over an hour and a half of her time by seeing this film with me.
Playdate is an American buddy action comedy film directed by Luke Greenfield and written by Neil Goldman.
It stars Kevin James and Alan Ritchson alongside Sarah Chalke, Alan Tudyk, Benjamin Pajak, Banks Pierce, Hiro Kanagawa, Stephen Root, Paul Walter Hauser, and Isla Fisher.
The movie clocks in at 94 minutes long and is rated PG-13 for strong language, violence/action, sexual material, some drug references, and smoking.
Recently laid-off forensic accountant Brian Jennings (James) struggles to adjust to life as a stay-at-home dad for his stepson Lucas (Pajak) who is bullied at school for being effeminate and terrible at sports.
Brian wrestles with trying to connect with Lucas because they have such different personalities and interests while Brian is insecure in his role as Lucas’ stepfather.
While his wife Emily (Chalke) returns to work at the hospital, Brian hopes to help Lucas make friends and arranges a playdate with Jeff Eamon (Ritchson) and his son CJ (Pierce).
Jeff is a charismatic and hyper-athletic stay-at-home dad new to the neighborhood, and CJ is his eerily strong son.
What begins as an awkward afternoon at indoor playground Buckee Cheese quickly spirals into chaos when a team of armed mercenaries attack.
The group is forced to flee in a stolen minivan amid car chases and Buckee Cheese skirmishes.
In the middle of the car chases, Jeff reveals he is a disgraced former Delta Force soldier who discovered CJ locked in a top-secret facility during his night shifts as a security guard.
He then ended up mistaking CJ for a captive child and broke him out of the facility.
While being pursued relentlessly, the group seeks refuge at Jeff’s estranged father Gordon’s (Root) house, but he refuses to help, highlighting Jeff’s own abandonment issues.
Interrogating a facility employee known only to Jeff as “Galifianak-ish” (Hauser) due to his perceived resemblance to actor Zach Galifianakis they learn the shocking truth: CJ (“Clone Jeff”) is the first successful clone of Jeff.
Galifianak-ish reveals that CJ was created by eccentric billionaire scientist Simon Maddox (Tudyk) and Jeff’s former commander Colonel Kurtz (Kanagawa).
Things just get even more absurd from there and I struggled to make it to the end of this film.
Truthfully, I don’t think you’ll even miss much of an experience from ignoring this movie either.
But, I’m hoping that Hollywood has something better to offer me this weekend.
