Cinemavenger

   The funniest, nastiest movie reviews anywhere.

Fist Fight

Richie "Rich" Keen must suck a mean dick.  I'm talking First Ballot Cocksucker Hall of Fame type shit.

How else do you explain a guy who's had 16 different TV directing gigs over the past three years - all but one of which he only held onto for literally one or two episodes - getting tapped to direct a feature film?  You can't explain it because it would never happen, not without some quid pro blowjob.

It's like having a Victoria's Secret model build your supercollider; when it's all said and done there's glitter and feathers all over the place but no god particles.  Or if you elect a glorified Century 21 agent/reality TV "star" to be your country's President; you get a globular clusterfuck of proto-fascism within the first 30 days.  And if you hire an unemployable small screen hack to direct your big screen movie, you get Fist Fight, a/k/a Shit Times at Roosevelt High.

It's the last day of school, and everything is out of control.  Nice guy English teacher, Mr. Campbell (Charlie "Not To" Day), just wants to make it through the day without getting fired so that he can perform with his daughter in her grade school talent show.  (Wait.  What?)  Tough guy history teacher, Mr. Strickland (Ice "Capades" Cube), is so fed up with all the disrespect from the students and the administration that he uses a fire axe to turn a kid's desk into kindling . . . with the kid still nearly in it.

In order to save his job, Campbell rolls over on Strickland, and Strickland gets fired.  To teach everyone a lesson about accountability, Strickland challenges Campbell to a fight.  At school.  At 3:00 that very day.  Campbell does everything he can to get the fight called off because, let's face it, Ice Cube is gonna kick Charlie Day's ass 11/10 times.

So, in the asshole corner, you have a guy with serious rage issues who smashes students' desks with axes and challenges fellow educators to parking lot brawls in front of the entire school.  And in the pussy corner, you have a self-serving coward who doesn't think twice about planting drugs on Strickland to get him arrested or conning a seven-foot-tall criminal to (try to) put him in the hospital.

It's kind of like when the Cowboys play the Patriots.  The only thing to root for is a terrorist attack that takes both teams out.

Should we be surprised that Fist Fight's story comes as close to making sense as a school mascot does to getting laid?  Campbell doesn't know how to fight.  He says so, out loud, multiple times.  Then, without so much as a training montage or even one fucking scene where someone shows him some moves, he's bobbing and weaving like Pacquiao as soon as the fight goes down.

Speaking of going down, Keen better remember to cup the balls and mind the teeth because after Fist Fight the only way he'll see a director's chair again is if he's kneeling in front of it.

February 24, 2017