Fist Fight Review
R: Language Throughout, Sexual Content/Nudity, and Drug Material
Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema, 21 Laps Entertainment, Village Roadshow Pictures, Dennis Haysbert, JoAnna Garcia Swisher
1 Hr and 31 Minutes
Cast: Charlie Day, Ice Cube, Tracy Morgan, Jillian Bell, Christina Hendricks, Kumail Nanjiani, Dean Norris, Alexa Nisenson
REVIEW: 2017 and we have our first R-rated comedy of the year. 2016 didn’t really end on a good note for R-rated comedies since we had Why Him? being the last major R-rated comedy to be released. The majority of R-rated comedies that I can handle are usually distributed by New Line Cinema. Horrible Bosses, We’re the Millers and now Fist Fight. Now we can finally just get into a good ol' simple R-rated comedy that’s not trying to be raunchy or push the boundaries with shock value and that is what you have here with the surprisingly inspired Fist Fight.
On the last day of the year, mild-mannered high school English teacher Andy Campbell (Charlie Day) is trying his best to keep it together amidst senior pranks, a dysfunctional administration, and budget cuts that put jobs on the line. But things go from bad to worse when he accidentally crosses his much tougher and deeply feared colleague, Ron Strickland (Ice Cube), who challenges Campbell to an old-fashioned throwdown after school.
THE GOOD: With Charlie Day sitting on the sidelines in a plenty of comedies, it’s about time to have him in the limelight in a movie. This film is the perfect vehicle for Day to showcase his full comedic abilities more than the random man child that we tend to see him in the Horrible Bosses films and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In this film, the screenplay tests his ability to progress from a man-child to a man with his character Andy Campbell. When the film’s plot kicks in you’re immediately on Campbell’s side. You don’t blame him for not wanting to fight Ice Cube. IT’S ICE CUBE! If you were Charlie Day you will go all the way back to Philadelphia and hide there. The film puts him in a stand still where you’re with Campbell for the majority of the film. For the MOST part, you begin to like him and feel for him. What makes Campbell a funny character is how much you relate to him and his situation where he’s the only sane person amongst this school of quirky and crazy teachers.
One of the best performances out of the film surprisingly comes from Ice Cube. It’s been since 2014’s 22 Jump Street since we saw him go off in the way Cube knows best: shouting and scaring people off without any filters. He is a very funny guy when he’s given the right material. When he’s put in a PG13 comedy like Ride Along, you see it in his face that he wants to drop an F bomb so badly. In this, Cube is off the leash. He’s truly more terrifying than his Capt. Dickson character in the 21 Jump Street films. When you see the students in his class mess with him the film nearly turns from a comedy to a horror movie. They even give him his own murder weapon being an axe. He’s as terrifying as he is given really funny Ice Cube like dialogue that you know is meant for him.
A lot of people may compare this film to the 1987s hit comedy Three O’ Clock High down to the story being set in one day, but with a twist of the leads being teachers instead of students but this reminded me of a short-lived Fox animated TV series back in 2009 named “Sit Down, Shut Up,” which featured the voices of Jason Bateman, Will Forte, and Will Arnett to name a few. Though it was short-lived, it was funny and vulgar where the stars were the zany personalities of these animated teachers. If there was a fully live-action version of Sit Down, Shut Up this movie would be it, because it is cartoonish as shit.
The movie is relentless with its gags. Whether it’s visual, physical, or even verbal, it just keeps hitting and hitting and hitting until you laugh. As a majority, it succeeds based on the absurd idea of due to it being the last day of school, all the seniors pull off these elaborate pranks on every teacher. Day isn’t the only one getting the end of the stick by the students, it’s everyone. It’s unexpected where a gag would take you because it’s so random but somehow it works. There are some juvenile dick and balls visual gags, but it’s never from the teachers but instead from the high school students. You can’t really fault the film for doing jokes only teenagers would laugh at when the teenagers are the ones making the jokes. Even the penultimate fight itself is cartoonish while resembling the infamous Family Guy Chicken Fight. It’s a hysterical build up to a great payoff being this fight which I consider much cooler than Batman V. Superman.
THE BAD: Besides Day is the pessimist and Cube as this nightmarish hothead, you have Jillian Bell as the guidance counselor who is addicted to drugs and attracted to her now graduated students (it’s extremely uncomfortable, to say the least), Tracy Morgan is the Tracy Morgan of gym teachers, and Dean Norris is the strict principal. The only person incredibly wasted is Christina Hendricks who is in no more than three scenes and has a one note running joke that gets really tiresome really fast.
Remember when I said, for the MOST part, you like Campbell as a character? This is where the most part comes in. Some of his screwball ideas to get out of the situation are so out of character at times it makes you hate him. This doesn’t play until halfway through the film where he gets crazy ideas to get Strickland in criminal trouble when he’s already been let go of his job. It’s harebrained and humorous but characters wise, it goes against all the likable elements you see in Campbell. This doesn’t only happen once, but twice and it’s really angering too. For a movie that asks you to like this character through and through, there are several moments due to his actions you root for Strickland to kick his ass.
As much as I enjoy Ice Cube in the movie, there is an annoying recurrence I’ve been seeing in every one of the films he features in Ice Cube quotes. It doesn’t only have to be an NWA quote, but it also has to be a Friday reference. It’s not even clever when it does it either. The way how it’s set up even makes it worse. When Strickland and Campbell have an altercation with the police and you’re praying he doesn’t it, the camera obnoxiously does the Tarantino zoom ins with Cube turning at the camera and saying with a full smile “FUCK THE POLICE.” The camera lingers for two seconds with you expecting him to go “HAA! WAKA WAKA.”
But it’s so forced that even Fonzie Bear would go:
Seriously can we not have Ice Cube saying his old lines in film anymore. Is that too much to ask. I’m tired of seeing the inside of my own head when my eyes roll every time he says one.
THE RENDY: There is this little girl that I’ve seeing in comedies recently and he’s been making me laugh my ass off every time. Her name is Alexa Nisenson. You might’ve seen her as Rafe Kasedorian’s little sister Georgia in the Middle School film last year where she was incredibly funny. She even had an emotional scene that [I’m not going to lie] make me nearly tear up. In this film, you see her full comedic range for she made me laugh so hard I cried. Out of all the jokes in this movie, the biggest laugh I got was from her. It wasn’t from any of the teachers or any of the adult cast, but it was from little Alexa Nisenson. Without giving too much away, she has a sequence that is somewhat unexpectedly hysterical. You may see the joke coming from a mile away, but to see it pulled off from her is surprising and earned. It’s not like the progression from Gluck being a great lead to having moose balls on his face in Why Him? but it’s a progression that proves she can dabble in both PG and R rated comedies and appealing to nearly everyone. I almost fell off my seat laughing at this little girl who is introduced with a high cutesy voice then deepens it when she’s given the limelight. This girl is going to move on to big things. I can see it for sure. Give her 20 years and you’ll probably see her become a cast member on SNL.
LAST STATEMENT: As it’s narrative passionately Influences from 3’O Clock High, Fist Fight delivers solid performances between Cube and Day while being inoffensive, and thoroughly funny comedy with a handful of hit or miss jokes.
Rating: 3.5/5 | 71%
Super Scene: Talent Show | The Big Fight
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Charlie Day leading a Role On His Own |
Annoyances of Side Characters With One Note Jokes |
| Ice Cube Cursing the Way He Should |
Waste of Christina Hendricks |
| Shoutout to Big Sean | Way Too Many Dick Jokes....Though They All Came From the Students Soo... |
| The Fight | Some of Campbell's Out of Character Decisions |
