Comedy
Dead Boy Detectives
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
Dodge is running … for his life.
Well, that’s not exactly accurate. Sure, Dodge is indeed running—literally running like crazy through the streets of Detroit. And people are indeed trying to kill him. They’ve paid handsomely to hunt down the man, and I’m sure they’d love to hang Dodge’s head over their fireplace mantel if they could find a taxidermist morally corrupt enough to stuff it.
But Dodge’s life is already on a timer. Brain cancer is eating him from the inside out—robbing him of his future and, given that he and his wife are expecting their first child, fatherhood. He’s also badly in debt, and he’d sure like to give his small family a little financial security before he checks his parking stub for good.
Thus, the “run,” financed by the hunters and organized by a slimy commissioner named Miles. The rules are simple: Dodge can’t leave Detroit and he can’t get help. Even getting himself sent to the slammer is a disqualification. He has to check in every hour and give up his exact location. The game ends after 24 hours or when a hunter successfully bags this human quarry. And the longer the run lasts, the more money is deposited in Dodge’s bank account.
“You survive the day, you walk away rich,” Miles tells him. “If not, you die a few weeks early … but your family is set for life.”
Dodge is indeed running, but not for his life. He’s running for the life of his family. That makes it OK, right?
The Most Dangerous Game, loosely based on the 1924 short story of the same name, landed on Quibi in April 2020. We talked a bit about the service itself in our review of Quibi’s Survive, but to be fittingly short: Quibi’s streaming service is all about serving up bite-sized chunks of entertainment for a culture on the go. Episodes run no longer than 10 minutes, and they’re all designed to be watched on your phone.
It says something about the deep pockets behind the platform that The Most Dangerous Game was able to lasso Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games) and Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) to anchor The Most Dangerous Game. And the show itself illustrates how the entertainment industry has morphed recently: CNET notes that this particular treatment of a book—as age-old a form of entertainment as you can get—was originally going to be a movie, before it was going to be a TV show, before it became whatever Quibi is.
But despite the bleeding edge format, The Most Dangerous Game still suffers from a couple of age-old problems.
Language seems to be the biggest drawback, at least at this point in the show’s run. F- and s-words are, if not common, frequent enough to jar.
And lest we forget, the show’s about hunting a human being down. That’s a pretty disturbing central conceit, and it might well serve as a platform for some bloody scenes down the road.
A clueless Dodge meets Miles in the latter’s posh Detroit office, where Miles offers the cancer-stricken father-to-be some of his best whiskey. “In your condition, you should drink whatever the h— you want,” he says. Dodge is hoping that Miles runs some sort of non-profit that helps sick or dying individuals financially, but Miles disabuses him of that notion quickly. No, Miles wants to hire Dodge to participate in a hunt … and he’s to be the prey.
Both men drink liquor, and Dodge takes medication for his terrible headaches. Profanity includes the f-word, “b–tard,” “d–n and “h—.”
The episode is a flashback. We see that Dodge is deeply in debt, and his wife is expecting their first child. Still, he has hopes to find someone to buy a building he restored … until he collapses on the sidewalk one day.
Dodge serves his wife breakfast in bed, but she runs to the bathroom and vomits. (In her pregnant state, she explains, the butter on her toast made her sick.) They smooch, and Dodge thanks her for her “vomity kiss.” Later, the two hang out at a bar with mutual friends, where most of the folks there drink beer. Dodge’s friend laments that all his children are girls, and that it’d be nice to have someone you can “watch football and fart with.” Dodge’s wife, Val, hides overdue bills. Characters say “b–tard,” and Val misuses God’s name twice.
In flashback, Dodge is told that he has cancer, and that the tumor is “malignant and inoperable.” He confesses to his wife that he took himself off the family’s health insurance months ago. In the present, Dodge listens to Miles’ proposal for the lethal run and is, at first, resistant.
“I’ll see you in hell first,” Dodge tells Miles.
“No, you get to go to heaven, Dodge, when you die,” Miles insists.
In addition to that use of “hell” (as a reference to the place), a character utters the f-word. We hear about some of the other people who’ve served as prey in previous hunts—people with terrible habits that left them (they felt) with no alternative. One was a cocaine addict. Others were gambling junkies. “You’re just a good man who got a bad hand,” Miles tells him.
Dodge comes to believe that participating in Miles’ run is the only way he can provide for his family. He lies to his wife, telling her that the building they’ve been trying to rehabilitate has found a financer, and that he’s determined to fight his grim cancer diagnosis. “I’m going to fight for all three of us and I’m not going to give up,” he says. The next morning, he wakes up before the sun rises and tells his wife he’s just “going for a run,” but leaves a note in the kitchen that reads, “I love you both forever.”
The s-word is used twice. We also hear “a–,” “b–ch”, “d–n,” “pr–k” and two misuses of God’s name.
The run begins, with Miles giving Dodge advice on how to stay alive. Dodge runs across the street and is nearly hit by a car. He talks his way onto a bus, but a person whom he thinks may be one of his hunters sits down next to him, forcing a hasty exit.
Dodge takes pills for his headache. Characters say the f-word and s-word once each. “A–,” “d–n” and a misuse of God’s name are also heard.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
Dead Boy Detectives targets teens in style and story. But it comes with very adult, problematic content.
An elf mage contemplates on connection and regret as she watches her human friends grow old and pass away.
