Hey gang, Valkor here. If you’re in a relationship and you’re
gonna mess around, it’s best to learn the art of discretion. And
if anything, don’t mess around in your own backyard because you’ll
never know when it can all come back and bite you in the ass –
and in the worse way. Why am I mentioning this? Because the guy
who was having extramarital affairs soon has a lot on his plate
as we delve into “The Badger Game”.
“The Badger Gamer” takes place all in one night, where a plan of extortion goes horribly wrong. You start out with four friends – Shelly (Jillian Leigh), Alex (Augie Duke), Alex’s brother Kip (Patrick Cronen) and their friend Jane (Sasha Higgins), who don animal masks and try to extort two million dollars from an Ad Executive named Liam (Sam Boxleitner). Why is that? It starts out initially as payback for Alex, who started falling in love with the guy, but discovered that he has a wife and kid. So she's not only doing this because she feels cheated, but also for the wife he's cheating on, because when she finds out, his free ride is over. Alex calls in Shelly to play the bait and friend Jane and brother Kip to assist. And if all goes well they’ll each net 500k! The initial capture was sloppy but successful. But after that it all goes downhill from there. For starters, the three women still have feelings for Liam, even Alex who has only met the guy briefly, so there's the whole "change of heart". I should point out that Jane is the most aggressive towards Liam because of the things they've done. Next, during an escape attempt, Liam cuts himself pretty badly… and he’s a hemophiliac. So there's the whole "bleeding to death" the group will have to deal with. And I'm sure they'll want their money before that happens. And finally, Liam’s wife hired a private detective named Clive (Marc Siciliani), who stumbles upon and gets mixed up in their operations by attempting to extort the money they were planning to extort. And when Clive is accidentally killed, it all goes downhill from there. How so? You should really watch this one without me spoiling because it’s really that good.
Watching “The Badger Game”, I’m somewhat reminded of “Flypaper” with Ashley Judd and Patrick Dempsey; the plots are very different but it looks and feels quite similar, though the humor in Flypaper ranks much higher – maybe because it’s just sillier and more fun, with some dark overtones. But that doesn’t mean The Badger Game is bad. On the contrary…
The Good:
The Badger Game is an awesome, character-driven piece of work that mixes comedy and suspense rather well; I initially thought the film was a horror because of the masks (You’re Next), but it’s actually more of a dark comedy with a decent amount of gore – one scene especially is cringeworthy. The plot is very unpredictable and there are so many twists and turns throughout that you never know what direction things are gonna go. And that’s a plus because of this, the film then holds your attention as you’re never sure what’s going to happen. It’s rare to find that level of unpredictability in a film that’s also entertaining. But what truly carries the film is the acting and everyone gets their fair share of screen time. However, acting standout for me goes to Patrick Cronen’s “Kip”, who goes through the most dramatic change in the film. He starts out lighthearted, quirky and fun but after the death of Clive, he changes and not for the better. He also has the hottest scene with Jillian Leigh’s “Shelly” involving oral sex and chloroform. It’s crazy and it works. If you like your humor mixed in with a little bit of dark and a little bit of twisted, with a small dose of gore then The Badger Game is definitely the one!
The Bad:
N/A
The Ugly:
Ahhhhh poor Clive!
The Badger Game is available now on the digital front (head on over to the official site on the right). And it’s one of the funniest dark comedies I’ve enjoyed watching to date. It’s well made, well acted and well… pretty damn good! I highly recommend it. And out of TOV 5 stars, I give” The Badger Game” 4.5 out of TOV 5 stars!
