Tag. You're it!

There are three rules in the game of tag.

Number one: it is played during the month of February.

Number two: Whomever is it must declare themselves when asked.

And number three: absolutely no tag-backs.

For a group of 10 friends, this game has been going on for nearly 30 years.

It started out innocently enough between a few of the guys in a high school classroom.

But then, things escalated.

Soon they were chasing each other down the halls of Gonzaga Prep and later, driving across state and even international borders. The Tag Brothers, as they call themselves, have gone to extreme measures to pass on the tag.

One brother masqueraded as an old lady while another hid inside the trunk of a car to land a tag.

The Rev. Sean Raftis, a Catholic priest at St. Richards in Columbia Falls, was among them.

“We’ve played it for 28 consecutive years since 1990, every February,” Ratfis said.

While it started in high school, it wasn’t until seven years after most of the group had graduated that they decided to revive the game. Tag not only gave them something to look forward to in February, it became a means of staying in touch.

“The whole point of it was you go, you tag somebody, but then you hang out,” he said.

It’s kept their friendship alive over the years and provided plenty of laughs and memories. Among Raftis’ favorite tags is one done by Mark Mengert, who dressed up as the Gonzaga Bullpups mascot and walked down to the front row during game time to tag Brian Dennehy.

“[He] tags Brian and gives Brian a note: ‘Brian, You’re it. — Mark.’” Raftis recalled with a smile.

And now, their youthful mischief will play out on the big screen.

“Tag,” based on the true story of the Tag Brothers will hit theaters this Friday, June 15, starring Jeremy Renner, Jon Hamm and Ed Helms.

It’s an experience best descried as “surreal” Raftis said Tuesday afternoon, just having returned from last week’s Hollywood premiere where he rubbed elbows with silver screen stars and dined at Renner’s home.

Their story gained traction after a 2013 article by Russell Adams made the front page of the Wall Street Journal. The brothers were inundated with calls from talk show hosts, documentayr filmmakers and international media outlets. The brothers lawyered up and eventually sold the rights to Warner Bros. subsidiary, New Line Cinema. The movie is a fictionalized account of their story: the original 10 brothers are whittled down to five in the film, for example, and while some of the twists and turns didn’t occur in real life, three tag scenarios are fairly true to reality.

The tag that happened at one of the brother’s dad’s funerals? Yeah, that really happened.

“Yeah it’s R-rated .. there’s some salty language, a few suggestive scenes, but the arc of the movie is friendship and actually at the end, it’s pretty moving,” Raftis said. “I was on the fence about this project, as a priest you’re a public representative and I wanted the movie to be good. [The director] did a great job of capturing the beauty and the goodness of brotherly love.”

The film premiere also provided an opportunity for the brothers to assemble together for the first time in 30 years, which Raftis said was “kind of an emotional moment.”

“In my opinion, we didn’t do anything to merit attention like this, but I think in this day and age where there is cynicism and a good deal of polarization in the country, everybody yearns for friendship,” he said. “I’m just very humbled and I’m very grateful.”

Reporter Mackenzie Reiss may be reached at 758-4433 or mreiss@dailyinterlake.com.