Playdate (2025)
Directed by: Luke Greenfield
Premise: A stay-at-home dad and his son (Kevin James and Benjamin Pajak) meet and befriend another father and son (Alan Ritchson and Banks Pierce). The four of them go on the run from an army of assassins.
What Works: Playdate features Alan Ritchson who is best known to audiences for his role in the Reacher television series and he has a large, traditional action hero screen presence. But in Playdate, Ritchson is willing to make himself look ridiculous. The character is out of his depth as a father and he tries too hard to make friends. There are some laughs early on but mostly in the way Playdate lampoons masculinity and suburban life. Playdate includes a brief subplot involving a group of suburban parents led by Isla Fisher who call themselves the “mom mafia.” A movie about these women might have been more interesting than what the filmmakers have created.
What Doesn’t: The weakest aspect of Playdate is the action movie elements which unfortunately are the main focus. This picture uses the frantic filmmaking style seen in action movies of a decade ago (see the Taken sequels), attempting to create excitement through rapid edits that don’t cut together and leave the viewer feeling frustrated and nauseous. Playdate is awash in action movie clichés including shootouts and car chases. The filmmakers attempt to give those cliches an absurd suburban twist but even that subversion is itself a cliché. We’ve seen high speed car chases through suburban streets in movies like Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Hot Fuzz, and Keeping Up with the Joneses. Playdate adds nothing to the concept. This film includes very strange tonal shifts. This is supposed to be a family comedy but it includes overt references to R-rated films Apocalypse Now and Reservoir Dogs. There’s no point to those intertextual connections. The filmmakers aren’t drawing parallels between movies; it’s just reference dropping. Playdate also includes some very strange needle drops. The songs are placed for irony but they don’t mean anything and just contribute to the discordant tone. When Playdate isn’t failing at irony, it’s trying to be a buddy comedy with fathers and sons coming together. But Kevin James’ character and his son are mostly pushed to the side. They don’t have any bonding moments and they mostly tag along and observe Alan Ritchson and Banks Pierce’s characters. There’s also a shockingly tone-deaf choice at very end of this picture that is barely remarked upon.
Disc extras: Available on Amazon Prime Video.
Bottom Line: Playdate feels like a dark, R-rated story that’s been contorted into a family-friendly PG-13 version. A few laughs early on give way to a cliché buddy action comedy marred by terribly misjudged shifts in tone.
Episode: #1077 (December 7, 2025)