Hearing about the story for Fist Fight, it’s unanimous that it could be a season finale of a television show focusing on teachers. But it’s stretched out as a full-length movie as it’s teacher vs. teacher as everything does go in this brawl comedy.
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 throw down after school.
The story even sounds like a crude version of Three O’Clock High. But for me, I was just thinking a story like this in the span of 91 minutes would just be filler and useless. None of the trailers made me laugh While Fist Fight is far from being a great comedy, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.
Is it predictable with how everything going to be handled in these situations? Probably is. It just feels very unrealistic that really nobody is putting a stop to the fight, and every single student wants this to happen. Also, word spreads fast when almost everybody in the entire world knows about the fight.
Day and Cube simultaneously handled everything in here because they basically play the type of roles they usually play. Day is always funny as shown in It’s Always Sunny and Horrible Bosses. He usually plays the same energetic character he always plays. I mean, he’s playing a teacher that’s going to get his ass kicked by a heated teacher. But he becomes a bit unlikable trying to get out of the fight because he sometimes makes things worse. As he progresses, he’s redeemable. Cube has proven to work with comedy also with Friday and the Jump Street franchise. If he was an actual teacher, he would get arrested for pretty much all of the stuff he did. He’s a psychopath.
It wasn’t really that funny as the script provided lame jokes that sometimes consist of a lot of dick related humor. Even the pranks that the students were doing wasn’t that hilarious. Julian Bell plays the guidance counselor who does drugs and wants to have sex with a senior. Her jokes gotten old pretty quickly. I’m also complexed to find out that Max Greenfield is one of the guys who came up with the story and produced it. But, I can’t deny the fact that I did laugh on a few occasions. There was one scene with Dean Norris that had the biggest laugh out of me.
Once the actual fight starts and everything goes down, it’s as expected. It didn’t go too overboard. You know where every part starts and end, but there are times just thinking when it’s going to start?
This is one of those comedies that won’t bother me if someone says they hate it. That’s understandable. Wasn’t expecting much out of Fist Fight, and for what it was, it’s not terrible.
Fist Fight doesn’t retain all the laughs for this unrealistic comedy premise, however, it pushes to that guilty pleasure status.
Grade: C+
DC's Take 