Parking lot. After school, It’s On! Those are the fighting words emphatically uttered by Ice Cube’s character Mr. Ron Strickland in the new Cube and Charlie Day starring film, Fist Fight. A very hysterically and refreshingly funny entertaining new comedy that’s loosely based on the 1987 teen comedy film, Three O’Clock High and finds Mr. Strickland with those emphatic words challenging Day’s character, Mr. Andy Campbell to a fist fight after school. Which stems from Mr. Campbell accidentally getting Mr. Strickland fired.
This all happens over one day, which is the last day before summer break at Roosevelt High School. The day not starting so promising for mild-mannered English teacher, Mr. Campbell, who we learn in conversing with his loving and devoted pregnant wife, Maggie and their daughter, maybe has the chance of being axed from his job. Then becoming the first victim of several Senior pranks when he goes to park in the reserved spot for teachers, but then has a student park his scooter there. As Mr. Campbell is entering the building there is two students who setup in the school’s trophy case a TV with a porno playing that everyone’s watching and laughing at. Things aren’t funny anymore though, as the very strict disciplinary history teacher, Mr. Strickland walks furiously through the hallways with a baseball bat that was for one of the school’s championship bats. Demanding why the bat was in the garbage and not the trophy case anymore he yells for the students who did it to take the TV out and get to class.
Being billed as the nice guy, pussy pushover by his English class and everyone else in the school, Mr. Campbell is asked twice by Mr. Strickland to help him with stuff. The most memorable one being when he’s asked to help play a civil history movie on a jagged up VCR in Mr. Strickland’s history class. To which he rats out a senior continuingly doing a prank with his phone to shutoff the movie and leads to Mr. Strickland getting an axe and chopping the desk after the student does it again.
Both teachers are then called to the principal’s office to ask about what happened, to which they vowed to stick together before Mr. Campbell eventually breaks and snitches, which leads to Mr. Strickland’s firing. Thus Mr. Strickland calling out the fist fight challenge.
Mr. Campbell then goes through various tactics to try avoiding the fight. The most notable one leading to them both being thrown in jail. At which point it looks like he may have gotten Mr. Strickland to soften up a little and call off the fight, but eventually saying it’s still on.
After both are released from jail, Mr. Campbell has to rush to a meeting to see if he still has a job or not. It’s at this meeting and at his daughter’s talent showcase at which point he lets everything loose and known he isn’t a pussy pushover, Mr. Nice Guy anymore. The Big Sean selected by his daughter for her talent showcase really setting the tone for one of the most outrageously and ridiculously funny parts of the movie, as well as the tone for Mr. Campbell perhaps not being such a huge underdog anymore. As he goes straight to the school after that to setup and get going the really epic hilarious and great never-ending fight that goes on between both teachers, in a fight to end all fights.
The fight needing to be had to show how bad and out of control the pranks, as well as students are in the public school system in not only the movie, but a lot of instances real life here in the U.S. right now. With a stellar starring cast of Cube, Day, Tracy Morgan, Jillian Bell, Christina Hendricks and Dean Norris there is several laugh out loud moments throughout the movie, which will have you laughing and crying or about nearly crying from the non-stop laughs you get from almost literally the beginning of the movie till the end. Morgan giving a very standout and hilariously standout performance in his first role since his accident alongside the already standout hilariously funny and stellar performances from Cube and Day.
This is definitely a movie that with its outrageous and ridiculously hilarious stunts and pranks, you can tell was partially inspired as director Richie Keen said by movies like Animal House and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. A lot of the latter film being shot close to the northern suburb of Chicago, Highland Park, where Keen grew up.
Fist Fight is definitely a film with how much pure comedy, as well as wildly entertaining it’s from beginning to end, will give you non-stop laughs from beginning to end and I highly recommend you go and see when it hits theaters next Friday Feb. 17th, if you want a good laugh and time at the movies. Something which is really needed by many of us in a time when everyone really needs a good laugh and escape from what’s going on in the world right now. Like those already aforementioned movies, it has the makings of later down the line becoming a cult classic and a movie that once you see it, you will say definitely needs a sequel with how wildly funny, crazy and ridiculously hilarious it’s. Thus why I urge you like Day and Keen said at the pre-screening that was played here in Chicago this past Tuesday, that you need to really go out and see the movie when it’s actually in theaters so that way there is demand for a sequel.