While the usual narrative of two students getting into an after school fight has been played out in most movies, “Fist Fight” goes against most played out sketch comedies and uses original and outrageous jokes to highlight a bigger issue.
“Fist Fight” starring Ice Cube and Charlie Day replaces the usual narrative of high school students on the last day of school and puts teachers in the spotlight instead.
Andy Campbell, played by Charlie Day and Ron Strickland, played by Ice Cube, are both high school teachers at a public high school. When a senior prank day goes too far, Strickland, the school’s toughest teacher, challenges Campbell, a mild mannered teacher, to an afterschool fight.
In the midst of a chaotic school day filled with pranks such as a horse high on meth running through the school’s halls, Campbell scrambles to find a way out of the fight.
“I keep saying it’s the prison guard versus the inmates in this movie,” director Richie Keen said. “On a day where it’s just gone too far with senior pranks, Ice Cube’s character goes too far and I just thought using that as a tool to have two teachers need to shine a light on a system.”
When New Girl star Max Greenfield approached the writers of the moviewith a script about two teachers who get into an afterschool fight, Keen knew it would be the perfect comedy.
“I felt like I wanted this to be an insane comedy, but, at the end of the day, I wanted it to shine a light on the education system because whatever side of the alley you’re on, I think we can all agree there’s a real problem with our public school system that needs a look,” Keen said.
“Fist Fight” runs to the edge of outrageousness without ever stepping over.
“I wanted to make a movie where you saw people being outrageous in a world you’d believe was happening next door,” Keen said.
Comedians such as Jillian Bell, Ice Cube, Kumail Nanjian and Tracy Morgan playing next to actors like Dean Norris and Christina Hendricks creates a balance of comedy that never feels like it’s trying too hard.
“My goal was to find the absolute funniest people in the world and put them next to the people you didn’t know were the funniest people in the world,” Keen said. “I tried to find the actor that I loved the most and sort of tailored the role to them.”
Although each character was designed for each actor, beloved actors are also seen coming out of their usual lanes and doing things they have never done before in other roles. Ice Cube engages in physical comedy for the first time while Day plays the sane, normal man.
“Fist Fight” is a comedy that gives a voice to the underdogs and unappreciated people in society.
“I think most people on the planet right now want two things: they want to laugh and they want to cry,” Keen said. “That’s what this movie is. This movie is for people who don’t always stand up for themselves.”
