Fist Fight

This review may contain spoilers!

A teacher tells another teacher he's going to fight them and they...fight; not sure who the biggest idiot is, the writer or the sap who bought the screenplay and produced it. I would give Fist Fight a 2.5/10.

This is a film that's best when it's at it's most manic, when things are completely out of control; wild moments of aggression draw some good laughs as well as Andy Campbell's high-pitched rants and quick quips. I enjoyed that despite the content of most of the movie there was a good statement about the status of the current education system, it's nice to see a really relevant theme even if the spotlight is only on it briefly. The soundtrack for the film has a lot of variety but manages to serve the film quite well comedically, in particular I enjoyed "I Don't Fuck With You" the Big Sean song performed by Alexa Nisenson in what is one of the funniest scenes of the film. Even the fight choreography looked alright, it was wild and messy but it managed to look very brutal which comedies struggle with.

Charlie Day, who played Andy Campbell, does the awkward fast paced humour in this film really well; Day really goes all out in the final act of the film and steals the spotlight there. Dean Norris, who played Principal Tyler, was the gruff no-nonsense figurehead of the school completely; I loved Norris' angry tirades in the face of all the destructive antics going on around him. Alexa Nisenson, who played Ally, does a very good job of playing this sweet young girl and then flipping that around when you least expect it; Nisenson's scene where she performs Big Sean is one of the best of the film.

However the best performance came from Ice Cube, who played Strickland. Over the past few years Ice Cube has really been making his mark on the comedy scene, the Jump Street and Ride Along films are both done incredibly well and he stands out in them. Fist Fight is the film that Cube really makes his own, having enormous presence in a greater majority of the scenes he is in. This character has such intensity and aggression, you feel he can snap at any given moment and he's prone to doing it. However I enjoyed that Cube took the time to really deliver the importance of education and the teacher's role in schooling; it was something he delivered with a lot of passion and brought a bit more depth to the film.

I guess where the film goes wrong is that it's as simple as it sounds, the plot has very little depth and can be taken very easily at face value. The way it's all structured you feel like you're watching a bad sitcom or sketch show, where various comedians are scrambling to fill the awkward silence with some half-assed joke. You lose interest because the characters have no personality and there's nothing driving the story of the film; you're waiting ten to twenty minutes for the next crucial moment of plot. The cinematography is dull and very simple, the framing lacks creativity and this all looks like it was probably the simplest comedy ever filmed. The editing is a half-hearted beat behind that, the pacing for this film is very slow and drawn out partly due to the way shots are edited together.

Tracy Morgan, who played Coach Crawford, is one of the most annoying characters in this film; Morgan keeps bantering out clearly adlibbed jokes that really aren't all that funny. Jillian Bell, who played Holly, gets the grand job of presenting the crass role with lowbrow humour; Bell makes these jokes as unappealing as they sound in her delivery. Christina Hendricks, who played Ms. Monet, is a completely unnecessary role in this film; Hendricks presents an over the top savage role with a hatred for Day's character that is never really explored. Kumail Nanjiani, who played Mehar, drones out his lines in a very dull manner; this rather passive character just didn't suit Nanjiani's comedic range. JoAnna Garcia Swisher, who played Maggie, had a very vanilla personality throughout the film; Swisher seemed content with being pushed to the background of the scenes she was in. Austin Zajur, who played Neil, gave a very seedy performance that never really felt too genuine; it would be nice if Zajur hadn't half sold it and had really committed to his delinquent role.