Fist Fight's writing suffers from major problems. For starters, Campbell's character arc - nice guy gets pushed around one too many times before learning to stand up for himself - is totally cliche. Another issue is that the movie wants us to both love and disdain its characters. Much of the humor is based on how incompetent the teachers are. Campbell more time outside of school than he does inside his classroom. Coach Coward (Tracy Morgan) finishes in last place every single year. Guidance Counselor Holly (Jillian Bell) regularly comes to the school high on meth, and openly flirts with students while discussing her plans to hook up with the graduating seniors. Moreover, Holly doesn't display a ton of skill at her job when she attempts to mediate the conflict between Campbell and Strickland. The drama teacher Miss Monet (an overqualified Christina Hendricks) wields a knife on campus, and even implores Strickland to bring a knife to the fist fight. Strickland is the only teacher who commands respect from the student, but that's only because he is so prone to violence. None of the other teachers make any serious or halfway sensible attempt to stop the stupid fight. This is fine as a source of humor, but then why should anyone care about whether these people keep their jobs that they don't deserve? I mean, sure, it never feels good to see anyone lose his/her job. But in this case, Holly, Monet, and Strickland are presented as genuinely unstable individuals who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a school or children. The movie can't have it both ways when it comes to how it wants us to feel about the characters.
The biggest writing flaw is the inconsistency of Ice Cube's character. Strickland's motivations for wanting to fight change every few scenes. At first it's because he believes Campbell broke the maxim that "teachers stick together" when he ratted out Strickland. To make up for this, demonstrate solidarity, and avoid the fight, Campbell jumps through several hoops to get Strickland his job back; however, at this point Strickland reveals that he never wanted his job back, and that he really only wanted to fight to show students that "actions have consequences" (it's never actually clear what "actions" he's referring to. Does he mean Campbell telling the principal what happened? If so, why would the students care about that? Does he mean the student who disrupted class? If so, wouldn't chopping the desk in half show the consequences for that action?). So if Strickland didn't care about keeping his job, then why did he care so much about teacher solidarity? And in that scenario, if Strickland truly believed teachers should look out for each other, wouldn't the honorable thing be to confess, resign from a job he didn't even want to keep, and help keep Campbell's job safe? Later Strickland reveals that his real motivation was to create a large spectacle to raise public awareness of and sympathy for the state of public schools. Ignoring how hare-brained this idea is, it seems strange that someone who wants to quit teaching would have that motivation. It's hard to care about what happens to Strickland when his character's motivations are so fickle and contradictory.
After the fight (in which the two teachers beat each other up way beyond anything resembling the realm of possibility on planet Earth), the movie ends with the fight turning into a major news event that somehow achieves Ice Cube's goal of getting people to care more about public schools. Everyone gets back the jobs they never ever should have had so that the movie can have its formulaic happy ending and lesson-learning. It's possible that the filmmakers are genuinely passionate about exploring the dearth of funding for public schools; however, none of that translates to the screen. The movie is simply too lazy and nonsensical to provide any insight.
Ultimately though, what butters this movie's bread is the fight itself and all the jokes surrounding it. To the movie's credit, the fight is legitimately intense and over-the-top - I certainly was worried the writers would invent some stupid reason for them to call off the fight, but the movie pulls no punches, pun intended. And the majority of the theater I was in was laughing pretty hard at the jokes. The cast is undeniably talented enough to elevate most material; if a steady dose of dick jokes, teachers using curse words, and slapstick is your cup of tea, this movie might just be for you. But I personally found most of the jokes pretty dumb and juvenile, which is why I can't recommend this movie.
Grade: 3/10
