I had very low expectations for Fist Fight; after catching an early screening of the film all I can say is, thank God I was wrong. Fist Fight is a film about a teaching staff at Roosevelt High School. It’s the last day of school so the juvenile delinquents are terrorizing the teachers for Senior Prank Day. To make matters worse, the school board is laying off teachers making their job status completely uncertain. During the day, Mr. Campbell (Charlie Day) rats out his colleague Mr. Strickland (Ice Cube) for an ax attack early in the day. So as punishment, Strickland challenges Campbell to a fight at the end of the day and Campbell proceeds to spend the rest of his day (and thousands of dollars) looking for a way to back out.Filming took place mostly in Atlanta, Georgia.
The main location was the old, abandoned East Atlanta High School on Mary Dell Drive—an actual condemned building with no running water, so the crew lived off port-a-potties while shooting. They also used spots like the Avenue East Cobb outdoor mall in Marietta for some of the parking-lot and family scenes. Behind the scenes, the big fight sequence between Cube and Day took a full eight days to shoot, and the two of them did the majority of the punches themselves with almost no stunt doubles. Director Richie Keen (an It’s Always Sunny alum like Charlie Day) had to win Ice Cube over with a custom pitch that included edited trailers and storyboards of Cube’s character mythology, which helped shape the final film.
The plot is simple and the film doesn’t try to take itself seriously. They know the premise is ridiculous, so they own it. The film hilariously pokes fun at Ice Cube’s cold demeanor and reputation. They even include social commentary on the broken school system. So many subtle references and details put into the script make the movie much smarter than the trailer lets on. If you are a fan of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, you are going to notice many similarities, especially with director Richie Keen and Charlie Day, both alums from the show working on this project. Watching this movie, you can feel that there was more effort put into the humor so the jokes hit more than they miss. I have attacked films like Sausage Party in the past that decided to be vulgar for the sake of being vulgar, but Keen makes sure that his foul-mouthed movie has more substance than that.
Little things like Cube and Day having a mock school debate where Day is Israel and Cube is Iran work so well because it requires a little more thought and an appreciation for the cleverness.
The film does lack support from its characters outside of Cube and Day. Christina Hendricks is terribly underused in the film as a crazy drama teacher; Jillian Bell does her typical ad-lib shtick, mostly revolving around trying to sleep with the students. Tracy Morgan is pretty good, but it doesn’t feel like you get enough of him. There is a bit involving a popular Big Sean song towards the end which absolutely steals the film and wins me over. Fist Fight is smart, funny, self-aware, and clever. Words that I haven’t been able to say about a comedy in a while, but I’m glad I was able to say it for this.
3/5
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