There are many reasons why you might be skeptical about just how true Tag is.
Most of all, it seems beyond the pale that 5 friends would spend the entire month of May playing the titular childhood game for over 30 years.
“Tag” is all the more remarkable because a group of pals really did do just that, and during my discussion with Jake Johnson the “New Girl” star admitted that was one of the main selling points for the film.
“It was sold as something that is based off a true story.”
“I was sent the documentary on the guys and told to watch it. I did that and I was told we would improvise a lot, have a lot of fun with it, and then I was told who was in it.”
Johnson admitted that he and his co-stars Ed Helms, Jon Hamm, Hannibal Buress and Jeremy Renner didn’t get the chance to meet those involved in the prolonged game of tag during filming, before insisting that their characters weren’t really based on them anyway.
“We didn’t really until after shooting. They weren’t really around a lot in the beginning. But by the end, nobody is really based off of anyone specifically, they were just kind of around to celebrate the movie. They just have a great attitude and were really excited.”
But while “Tag” is clearly a heightened version of what the friends went through, Johnson admitted that there are “certain sequences and moments” from the movie, “like the funeral and the birth of a baby that really did happen with the tag guys.”
You can try and spot what other moments from “Tag” have been taken from real-life now, as the comedy has just been released into cinemas, and it possesses more than enough laughs and enjoyable camaraderie to be worth your time.
