Players (2024)

Mack (Gina Rodriquez of Jane the Virgin 2014-19 and Someone Great 2019), Adam (Damon Wayans Jr. of the new CBS comedy Poppa’s House), Brannagan (Augustus Prew), and Little (Joel Courtney) are a crew. Not a rowing crew, but a tightknit group of friends, the first three from college. Little is Brannagan’s little brother, hence the nickname. It is important you know how tight these four are to understand one of their favourite pastimes. Beside hanging out at bars to drink, play pool, and bowl, their favourite group activity is creating “plays” through which they dupe unsuspecting “targets”. It’s nothing nefarious though. You see, it all has to do with sex, one night stands to be exact. The end goal of every play is to have one of the frisky foursome end up in bed with a hot guy or gal they met in a bar. Written by Whit Anderson and directed by Trish Sie, the plot makes it abundantly clear that the end goal of a “play” is not a relationship, but a one-night stand.

Much of the comedy part of this rom com comes to pass when the group strategize about and carries out a play. For instance, early in the film, Mack, intent on a night of pleasure with her hunky white neighbour, devises a plan to entice him. Planting her fly-fishing magazine in his mailbox, she then rushes to her apartment where she follows up by placing a fishing rod in her hallway and setting the TV to a fishing show. When the hunk next door stops by to deliver her magazine (in which she has no real interest) Mack ensures that he spots the rod and show, seducing him into believing his sexy neighbour shares a passion for his hobby. The clothes come off pretty quickly after that!

Another play involves Mack’s assist to Brannagan. How you ask? Well, in ear shot of the white female target in a bar, Mack performs, loudly, as Brannagan’s disgruntled girlfriend. What’s got her so riled up? Well, Mack throws out lines that signal that Brannagan is too keen on commitment, too devoted, and too generous with gifts and trips (like the one planned for Fiji) and that she is not feeling the pace or intensity of their relationship. On cue, Mack storms out of the bar, leaving Brannagan alone beside his white female target who immediately takes the bait and engages him sympathetically in conversation.

It is clear from their often drink-laced conversations (that often take place in bars) that the friends are very familiar with each other’s likes, dislikes, foibles, anxieties, and pet peeves. This includes sexual preferences and “types. They also give high fives and groove it out on the spot with a little “chair dance” when everything comes together. While Mack, Adam, and Little are straight, Brannagan is bisexual, a fact that does not in any way alter his perception as an indispensable friend for the group. It is also refreshing that their multi-racial makeup is not a topic for conversation or debate. It just is and they are devoted friends each with their unique characteristics. While Rodriquez’s Mack (who is as much a player as the men), brings the full-package-girl-who-can-hang-and-work-the-sexy, Wayan’s Adam captures the poignant and silly, while Courtney’s Little is often adorably, a beat behind. It is Prew’s Brannagan (of the second installation of Prison Break 2017), though who has quirky-adorable on lock.

But of course, the movie would have no drama unless something shifted the relative peace and sameness of this foursome. Enter the hunky, white, Brit and almost-Pulitzer-winner Nick (played by Tom Ellis) who glides into their newsroom one day to meet his friend (aka Mack, Adam, and Brannagan’s boss at The Brooklyn Ace) Karen Kirk (played by Marin Hinkle of Two and Half Men 2003-15). Mack is smitten as they say and identifies Nick as a real adult with whom she, uncharacteristically, wishes to have a real relationship and not a mere one-nighter. Although the guys are initially shocked by this departure from the usual pattern, as true friends, there’s nothing to be done but to have Mack’s back and develop an all-new play.

One of the film’s cutest sequences is when the foursome begin to follow (no, stalk) Nick to find out his preferences, habits, schedule, and weaknesses. You see, this is how they will “casually” begin to “plant” Mack in his path in seemingly coincidental ways which will appear to him to be happenstance, or better yet, life drawing him towards this phenomenal woman. What does this all look like? How about bumping into Nick at his favourite bookstore right before his public reading, but not being interested enough to stay to hear him speak; Adam spritzing Mack with a fine mist of water to provide signs of physical exertion before she (ear pods in) starts running on a path, deliberately jogging past Nick ignoring him when he waves and calls out; and creating a crisis for Nick’s date at a classical music concert that forces her to leave only to con her way into the venue and “accidentally” meet him at the bar at intermission where she cleverly mentions her non-existent brother’s boredom with the show, therefore inducing Nick to offer her his now absent date’s vacant seat.

When another play requires a female sidekick, Mack realizing that she is bereft of female friends, is saved when the guys encourage her to bring in Ashley (Liza Koshy), the cute, young, quirky receptionist with whom Little is clearly smitten. In this play, during the seemingly accidental encounter with Nick in the park before a movie, Ashley plays the inappropriately drunk friend who Mack must take care of therefore demonstrating selflessness and kindness. How can Nick resist? Well, he can’t, and soon he and Mack are dating and, more importantly, moving towards Mack’s relationship goal of being offered a drawer in which to put her belongings in his home during sleepovers. That Mack’s goal is set at such a low bar speaks to how long she and the guys have been running plays which result in fleeting sexual gratification with strangers. But the cracks (or at least weak spots) in their friendship begin to show when Adam unexpectedly invites the new woman he’s been secretly dating, Claire (played by Ego Nwodim of Saturday Night Live stardom), to join them for bowling. The reactions are comedic confusion as they jockey, in front of Claire, to get information from Adam about his seeming transformation. Is he too, like Mack, becoming an adult? (We should point out, that they are all, likely except for Little and Ashley, in their thirties).Yes, he admits, he likes Claire and yes, they are dating. But what he does not say (out loud) is that he has obviously kept Claire under wraps and away from his rather juvenile friends for a reason.

But when a new foursome – Mack and Nick + Adam and Claire – go to brunch, several things become crystal clear. For one thing, Nick does not know Mack and how can he because she is preforming an identity of who she believes he wants her to be (like a woman who does not share food and likes eating branzino with the head on). On another front, Claire is no fool and her knowing looks let us know that she detects that the communication style of Mack and Adam – the inside jokes, personal knowledge, high fives, and chair dancing – signals much more than friendship. To her credit, this beautiful black woman, bows out gracefully and breaks things off with Adam since she can see heartbreak a coming. But Adam tells no one.

The question then becomes if Mack will realize what Adam and their friends already know. In her breakup scene with Nick, after he has savagely rewritten the most personal article of her career, she realizes that he does not know her. But how could he, when the whole premise of their “spontaneous” attraction was based upon a series of cleverly staged lies? You see, Mack has gotten everything she said she wanted, including the offer of the precious bureau drawer, only to find out that the man to whom it belongs is not the right man for her.

But as Players reveals, good friends earn that title because they know you and come through for you when it counts. After Mack, Brannagan, Ashley, and Little confront Claire and a non-Adam romantic companion at a bar, they discover that Adam has kept his breakup a secret. Claire is innocent. Adam got dumped because, as Claire reveals, he is in love with Mack. While Mack is shocked, Brannagan and Little disclose how long they’ve been privy to this “secret” – hint, over a decade. Hell, even Ashley, the last to join the crew, nods knowingly. But Adam is not speaking to Mack or responding to her texts since their blow up at a charity gala for Nick at which Adam intuitively chided Mack for allowing Nick to ignore her and denigrate the article that represented precisely who she is.

So, the question is, will Mack seize the love that is right in front of her in the form of her handsome, caring, and ride-or-die best friend Adam who knows and appreciates her and can sense her moods by what she is or is not saying and what she is or is not eating – falafel when she’s sad? As with any good rom com, Players gives us the happy ending that we want with Mack and Adam and Little and Ashley loved up by the end. But the where of Mack’s declaration of love for Adam also matters since it is at the same baseball field where her parents first met and fell in love.

Players is a cute and heartfelt romantic comedy with many funny and poignant moments. Although much of the movie revolves around Mack’s romance with Nick, the love between the members of the crew is on constant comedic display. A stronger plot could have been achieved through flashbacks which allowed us to see how the friendships of Mack, Adam, and Brannagan were initially forged in college, especially around pivotal moments like the death of Mack’s mother. It would also have been nice to have more time with Mack and Adam, the romantic couple, beyond their only kiss in the final frames of the film. But if you’re looking for an enjoyable rom com to watch with your girls with a glass of wine or snuggled up with your boo, Players is a solid choice.