Deep down, I'm not sure I ever believed we would actually get a sequel to Trainspotting until, miraculously, twenty years later we actually did get a sequel. It was something that had long been rumored over the years, but it never seemed like it would actually materialize. It was a prospect I looked forward to as I really did love these characters and was curious to see what had happened to them. Perhaps not getting a sequel until now was fitting. It feels like enough time has passed that checking in with them again would be a worthwhile time. Much to my surprise, it turns out that it actually was worthwhile too.
The film starts with Mark Renton (played by Ewan McGregor) returning to Edinburgh after living in Amsterdam for the past twenty years. After a visit to his family home, he goes to visit Spud (played by Ewan Bremmer), who he discovers is not doing well and still struggling with heroin addiction. His visit to Sick Boy (played by Jonny Lee Miller), who is now addicted to cocaine, running a local bar and running a blackmail scheme on the side, goes even less well as Sick Boy is still sore at Mark for stealing $16,000 from him and Begbie and running off. Begbie (played by Robert Carlyle) has staged an escape from prison after being denied bail and has returned home as well, intending to resume his criminal ways. Meanwhile, Sick Boy devises a scheme with Mark and his girlfriend Veronika (played by Anjela Nedyalkova) to turn the second level of his bar into a brothel. The three become partners in crime to try and raise the funds to make the necessary renovations to the second level, recruiting Spud (who has recently lost his job and family to his heroin habit) to help as well. Meanwhile, it's only a matter of time before the hot-headed Begbie finds out Mark is back in town and wanting the money he stole back.
While it's not as good as the first, director Danny Boyle and writer John Hodge manage to craft a solid follow-up to the first film that takes a good hard look at the original film's characters twenty years later. Mark, Sick Boy and Spud all have plenty of regrets and are trying to find a way to move ahead in their lives despite past mistakes with mixed results. Sick Boy is trying to keep the bar he inherited from his aunt afloat despite being in a terrible neighborhood with very little in the way of a customer base. This has lead him to a blackmailing scheme with his girlfriend Veronika to try and make ends meet, while also having other schemes in process including a pot grow house in the basement of the bar. He's also nursing a pretty serious cocaine addiction which is not helping. Mark has returned to Edinburgh from Amsterdam trying to find some direction in his life after suffering a serious heart attack (on a treadmill, in a health club, which we see in the opening scene of the film). Poor Spud has lost everything to his heroin addiction, losing his job, his girlfriend and his young son. It's only when he's drawn into Mark and Sick Boy's latest scheme that he manages to start to put his life back together as well as find a desire to do that. And then there is Begbie, who is eager to return to his criminal ways after breaking out of prison and wants his son to join in, but his son would rather go to school for hotel management. Boyle and Hodge manage to juggle all these plot lines quite well, making this film much more of an ensemble film than the previous film. They also frequently make nods to the original film as characters reflect on their past mistakes. Renton even revisits his famous "Choose Life" speech, updating it for today's world in a rant that starts out playful before descending into painful regret and sorrow at what his life has become.
The acting is also quite good in the film, with the cast of actors more or less picking up their characters twenty years later. It really does feel like the same characters too. Sometimes with late in the day sequels, the characters don't feel quite right even though it's the same actors playing them. In this case, I really did feel like I was seeing Mark, Sick Boy, Spud, and Begbie again. It probably helps that we have the same director and writer returning as well, but they all managed to recapture their characters quite well. Ewan McGregor manages to recapture Mark Renton well, showing the man weighted down by the regret and mistakes that have dominated his life. While he managed to successfully kick heroin, his running away at the end of the first film continued to reverberate consequences that he is now left to deal with. Jonny Lee Miller also does great at recapturing Sick Boy, who has lost the confidence he had as a young lad and is now just trying to make things work the only way he knows how. Ewan Bremmer really tugged my heart strings as poor Spud, who seemed to be left behind by his friends and while he's glad to see his best mate Mark back, he's still mad at him for leaving. Still, it was nice to see Spud start to pull his life together again as the film went on and Ewan Bremmer did a good job portraying the struggles of his character and making him sympathetic. Robert Carlyle returns as Begbie, probably the one character who hasn't grown at all and is still the same violent, crazy nutter he was in the first film, just older and a little slower. One can only wonder why Mark, Sick Boy and Spud ever had anything to do with this guy, which this film does shed a little light on, actually.
Overall, T2 Trainspotting is a different beast from the original film, as it perhaps should be. As the first film was very much of the '90's, this film very much feels part of 2017. The characters are older, have grown and changed and it only makes sense that the feel of the film would change with it. But never once did I feel like I wasn't catching up with Renton, Sick Boy or Spud and in this day and age of the "nostalgia" sequels, that's saying something. They nailed it and created a solid follow-up to the classic original. It's not Trainspotting, but then again it never should have been anyway.
I still vividly remember the first time I saw the film Trainspotting. From it's eclectic and thundering soundtrack, indelible performances and some of the most inventive visuals I had ever seen in my tender sixteen years of life, this film was unlike anything I had seen before and I loved it all the more for it. I also credit it more than any specific government sponsored program as the ultimate deterrent towards taking hard drugs (namely heroin, but I avoided the lot of it because of this movie and the effects it had on it's characters). Now, twenty years later, there are still entire parts of the film that are forever burned into my brain.
The film focuses on a group of twentysomething friends, most of whom are heroin addicts, in Edinburgh, Scotland. They consist of Mark Renton (played by Ewan McGregor), Sick Boy (played by Jonny Lee Miller), Spud (played by Ewan Bremmer), Tommy (played by Kevin McKidd) and Begbie (played by Robert Carlyle). The film focuses on their various misadventures, with an unflinching focus on the heavy drug use, especially by Mark, Sick Boy, and Spud, as well as the consequences of their addictions. The film follows the characters, primarily focusing on Mark, as they not only give into their addictions but also the misadventures they get up to in between. There are also a couple of times in the film that Mark decides he's going off heroin with mixed results.
The film was directed by Danny Boyle from a script by John Hodge and the two managed to produce a film that, for all it's unflinching views of drug addiction and poverty, is a film absolutely filled with life. The film kicks off with the thumping Iggy Pop song "Lust for Life" as Mark and Spud flee from the cops, accompanied by the now iconic "Choose Life" narration by Mark and it absolutely sets the tone for the entire film. The film manages to mix in some more surreal moments in with the startling realistic ones, including Mark diving headfirst into "the worst toilet in Scotland" to retrieve a pair of opiate suppositories he had scored or a moment later in the film when he takes his latest dose of heroin and literally sinks into the floor, dramatizing what the character is feeling on the drug. It's these flourishes by Boyle that are part of what made the film so memorable for many as well as their contrast with the darker parts of the film.
The performances in the film are quite strong as well. Ewan McGregor leads the cast in the film that was his first big breakthrough as an actor. His natural charisma made it east to like Mark, even when we probably shouldn't. Jonny Lee Miller likewise makes a good turn as Sick Boy, the James Bond obsessed friend of Mark. The two share an interesting friendship as the two seem to try and show the other one up as much as actually being friends, something Mark comments on in the film. Ewan Bremmer is a bit of the comic relief of the film as the goofy Spud, who tries to do right but seems to have the worst luck. Bremmer does a good job portraying Spud, making him a sympathetic character you can't help but feel for when things go wrong. And then there is Robert Carlyle as Begbie, who is a force of nature in this film as the career criminal Begbie, whose drug of choice is alcohol (as opposed to the heroin the others take) and frequently picks fights in the local bars with little regard for the consequences. I sometimes wonder why the others hung out with him since Begbie is such a loose cannon and it's not something the film explains that well, except perhaps they got a thrill seeing what crazy thing he did next.
There was some criticism directed towards Trainspotting around the time of it's release for, as they claimed, glamorizing taking heroin and other heavy drugs. This is something I found surprising and still do after re-watching the film as it the film never shies away from showing the consequences of heroin abuse. It leads to misery and even death. I suppose if one only looks at the surface, with the flashy visuals and thumping soundtrack, it can seem that way. But if you really watch the movie, it's pretty grim in parts and never sugarcoats what hell a long term drug habit can unleash on a person's life and health. If watching the scene of Mark's detox from heroin and the hell it is for his character isn't enough to scare a person off trying any of those heavy drugs, then nothing ever was going to.
For a film with such heavy and dark subject matter, Trainspotting still remains a favorite because it's also so full of life, from it's eclectic and well picked soundtrack, a charismatic and memorable performance from Ewan McGregor (as well as the entire cast for that matter), and memorable direction from Danny Boyle and a strong script from John Hodge. Unlike some other drug themed films (such as Requiem for a Dream), I've always been able to revisit and enjoy Trainspotting. It's a unique film that finds the right balance between humor and pathos, but never steps away from the stark reality of it's characters at the same time. More than anything, that's what's made it so memorable to me, all these years later.
As I've stated before, I am a sucker for a good time travel story. There is just something about the idea of time travel, as well as the narrative possibilities of it that appeals to me. One of my favorites of the genre was Nicholas Meyer's inventive Time After Time, which has recently been remade as a T.V series (one of six series this year focusing on time travel!). I'm struggling to see how the film with such a self contained storyline can be stretched to a television series. So, before giving the series a try, I decided to take a look back at the film that inspired it.
In 1893 London, Jack the Ripper has made a sudden return to the scene, offing another prostitute in a dark alley. Not too far away, H.G Wells (played by Malcolm McDowell) is hosting a dinner party for some friends and is awaiting the arrival one last guest, physician John Stevenson (played by David Warner) before making an exciting announcement. Once he does, H.G reveals that he has invented a time machine that he proceeds to show his astonished and disbelieving friends, including a unique failsafe key that if the machine is operated without it, the machine will automatically return to it's place of origin. After the presentation, there is a knock at the door with the police searching for Stevenson, who they have identified as Jack the Ripper. The police quickly search the house, but find no trace of Stevenson and leave, believing he has escaped. Soon, H.G makes the horrifying discovery that Stevenson did indeed escape...in Wells' Time Machine. Since it was operated without the key, the machine soon returns to H.G's laboratory. Gathering up all the valuables he can find in the house, he follows Stevenson in time, forward to 1979. Much to his surprise, he lands not in London but in San Francisco. Furthermore, he is shocked at how the future has turned out, seeing it less of the utopia he imagined and more of a chaotic world of automobiles, crime, violence and world war. Reasoning that Stevenson would need to change his British money to American currency, Wells begins visiting area banks to ask about Stevenson, hoping to find a clue to finding him. He finds a lead from bank employee Amy Robbins (played by Mary Steenburgen), who in the process becomes an ally in Wells' pursuit of a deadly killer unleashed on San Francisco.
Nicholas Meyer wrote the film based on a story by Karl Alexander as well as directed the film. The central concept of the film is actually quite clever. Usually, time travel stories start in the present and then have the traveler going to either the future or the past, but here instead finds a unique perspective of having someone from the past traveling to our present. This allows Meyers to give a unique ability to examine how our culture has grown and changed over the past 86 years. It also allows for some unique character moments, such as H.G's disappointment that the future is not the utopia he envisioned but rather a world more suited to the violent Stevenson (Stevenson admits as much, saying that in 1893 he was a freak, in 1979 he's an ameteur, after seeing the worldwide destruction various wars have caused). And yet, for a film focusing on the pursuit of Jack the Ripper, there is a certain light hearted sense of humor to the film as H.G contends with the baffling new world he has landed in. There is also a sweetness to the burgeoning romance between H.G and Amy as well that helps offset the more suspenseful parts of the film as well.
The performances from the three main actors are quite good as well. I really enjoy Malcolm McDowell in this film. He got typecast playing villains after A Clockwork Orange and it's so refreshing to see him playing a good guy, in particular a good guy who is non-violent and does the best he can to avoid violence at all costs over the majority of the film. The film also gives McDowell a nice arc to work with as throughout the film he refuses to resort to violence to capture Stevenson. Amy even asks him point blank if they should get a gun and he refuses. But as the film goes on and the circumstances escalate it becomes clear to H.G that the only way to stop Stevenson and protect Amy is to kill him. David Warner makes for an effective villain as well and is more than just a mindless slasher. He genuinely believes that he belongs in the future, that it is his time. At the same time, he still views H.G as a friend and doesn't want to hurt him if he doesn't have to. Still, he does give in to his compulsion to kill others, which he does throughout the film (although for a movie with Jack the Ripper in it, it is not particularly violent). And then there was Mary Steenburgen. She does well in the film as H.G's love interest and partner in his pursuit of Stevenson. She fills the role with a certain spunky charm, along with some decent chemistry with Malcolm McDowell. I also have to mention that this film has an interesting parallel with the Back to the Future trilogy, especially Part III, which Steenburgen also starred in and in that one plays the opposite of her character in this. In this one, she's a 20th Century woman falling for a 19th Century time traveler and in the other film she's a 19th Century woman falling for a 20th Century time traveler. It makes a fun little connection between the films (also, this film shares a connection with the original Back to the Future. In both films, the date they travel to is November 5th, although the years are different, obviously).
Time After Time remains a fun little sci-fi adventure film. Sure, the special effects may be a bit dated today, but I don't feel they detract from the film very much. The central story remains as exciting and charming as ever. I do find it curious that they chose to adapt it into a T.V series now some 28 years after it first came out. I struggle to see how they can create a compelling and long running series from a film with such a satisfying and self contained storyline. Regardless, the movie is well worth checking out.
Ever since the first X-Men movie hit theatres in the summer of 2000, I have been a fan of Wolverine as well as Hugh Jackman himself. Over the course of the next seventeen years, I followed his cinematic exploits from both the good (X2, Days of Future Past, The Wolverine, that awesome cameo in First Class) to the less than great (X-Men Origins: Wolverine). Now, it comes time to bid farewell as Hugh Jackman gives the beloved Wolverine, his real name is Logan, one last ride and this one's a doozy.
Set many years in the not so distant future, Logan (played by Hugh Jackman) is living a quiet life making ends meet driving a limo and living in a secluded area close to the Mexico border. He's grown older and his regenerative abilities are starting to fade. He needs eyeglasses to read and is starting to slow down. Living with him is a now 90 year old Charles Xavier (played by Patrick Stewart), who has become prone to seizures that are not only a threat to him but, thanks to his incredible mental powers, a threat to those in the immediate vicinity and as a result is kept heavily medicated. Helping him take care of Charles is another mutant named Caliban (played by Stephen Merchant), who has the ability to sense and track other mutants. One day, Logan is approached a woman named Gabriela (played by Elizabeth Rodriguez), who asks Logan to take her and the young girl she is with, Laura (played by Dafne Keen) to North Dakota, where she says there is a refuge for Mutants called Eden. He initially refuses, but once he discovers that Charles has been communicating with Laura, as well as witnesses Laura's abilities that are shockingly similar to his own, he agrees to take them, along with Charles. Hot on their trail are Donald Pierce (played by Boyd Holbrook) and Zander Rice (played by Richard E. Grant), who experiment on and clone children based on Mutant genes, which is where Laura came from. It's going to take everything Logan has left to try and keep Laura out of their clutches.
Taking inspiration from Mark Millar and Steve McNiven's seminal series of comics "Old Man Logan", director James Mangold and co-writers Scott Frank and Michael Green mange to create a fitting final chapter in the X-Men series for two of the most popular characters, Wolverine and Charles Xavier. There is a nice sense of things coming full circle for the two characters that made me really glad I re-watched all the previous X-Men films prior to this one (Yes, even X-Men Origins). In the original film, Charles begins to help an amnesiac Logan try to recover his lost memories and in this film things have come full circle with Logan looking after Charles and trying to help him the best he can. The film is a dark and gritty film that most certainly earns it's R rating (and is also most assuredly not for kids). We also get to see perhaps the truest berserk attack from Wolverine, something we've seen in the series before, notably in both X2 and X-Men: Apocalypse, but now without the burden of PG-13, they are able to show it in all it's gruesome intensity. The film also ups the stakes considerably as Logan has grown weaker over the years and become considerably more mortal, making the threat that Donald and Zander (along with all their goons) pose all the more foreboding. Yet, at the same time James Mangold gives the film room to breathe and let the smaller, more character driven moments really develop which in turn strengthens the film.
For his final outing in the role (and he has sworn up and down this is his last time playing Logan), Hugh Jackman gives the role his all. I couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor guy, seeing him as a broken down man hiding from society. It really is a touching performance from Jackman as he gives the Wolverine one last heroic outing doing whatever it takes to get this one girl, and later the kids like her (in a section of the film that reminded me more than a little of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome) to safety. Likewise, Patrick Stewart gave a great turn as an older, stubborn Charles Xavier who has to convince Logan that they still have it in them to help one more mutant child, to one more time find some purpose in their lives. It's an equally touching performance and yet hard to see Charles in such a state, a great mind that is also betraying him. It's not hard to see how both Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart have stated they are retiring from their roles. Might as well stop while you're on top. I also have to mention Stephen Merchant as Caliban as the role is a pretty significant departure for the actor, mainly known for his comedic roles (and I will probably always remember him best as Ricky Gervais' clueless agent on Extras). It's a wonderful and sympathetic performance.
Overall, Logan is without question the best of the standalone Wolverine films and easily one of the best X-Men movies period. It also shows that there is a place for thoughtful and well-made comic book films made for an adult audience. It's dark, gritty and intense but also explores deeper into it's central character than before with a sense of maturity and honesty that hasn't been seen in this genre before. It's a refreshing change of pace and will be curious to see what, if any, future films follow this one's lead. As a send off for the Wolverine, it's pretty much perfect for me.
When I first heard that Jordan Peele, one half of the comedy duo Key and Peele, was writing and directing a horror movie I was immediately intrigued. Comedy and Horror have an interesting symbiosis. After a jump scare in a horror movie, the audience will usually laugh. Then there are comedic actors and directors who have crossed over into horror with interesting and frequently disturbing results, whether it's Robin Williams' frightening turns in Insomnia and One Hour Photo or Kevin Smith writing and directing the horror films Red State and Tusk, it may not always be completely successful, but it sure is interesting.
Chris Washington (played by Daniel Kaluuya) is traveling with his girlfriend Rose (played by Allison Williams) to visit her folks at their house in upstate New York. Chris is concerned about the trip because Rose never told her parents, Dean (played by Bradley Whitford and Missy (played by Catherine Keener) Chris was Black, but she isn't worried as her parents are very open minded ("My dad would've voted for Obama for a third term," she says as an example.) and she doesn't think he should worry. Upon arrival at their picturesque and secluded home, it certainly seems nice, but something is a bit off at the same time. They have two staff members helping around the house, cook Georgina (played by Betty Gabriel) and gardner Walter (played by Marcus Henderson), both of whom are not only Black but there also seems to be something a bit off about them. It's revealed that Missy is a therapist specializing in hypnotism and offers to help Chris with his smoking habit, which he is trying to quit. He politely declines, but that is just another red flag for Chris as he tries to figure out exactly what is going on, with some help via phone to his friend Rod (played by LilRel Howrey).
To say more about the plot of Get Out would risk spoiling things and that would be a shame. Part of the fun of the film is the plot unfolding as Chris unravels the sinister secrets of his girlfriend's parents and their friends. While the film is at times very funny, Jordan Peele has crafted a genuinely scary movie as well (forever more someone stirring a cup of tea will be incredibly unnerving). Balancing humor and scares can be a tricky act, but yet Peele manages to pull it off nicely. While also being a legitimate scary movie, he also tackles the issues surrounding race between Blacks and Whites, specifically the liberal upper class whites he referred to as the "West Wing liberals," which is funny because Bradley Whitford starred in both. He shows, through the extremes of a horror film, that the East Coast liberal elites that although they mean well, their ignorance and hubris can make things just as hard and awkward for the Black Community. It's a clever stroke to craft his villains by swinging the pendulum far away from the typical neo-nazi, racist "Alt-Right" folks and instead focus on those that love black culture and the celebrities that they feel represent it all the while not really associating with any actual Black people or any real interaction with the community they admire. He faces these themes head on and bring them to the forefront leading up to a climax that may rankle and bother some viewers but that Peele and his cast manage to pull off wonderfully.
The cast also turns in some great performances. Daniel Kaluuya was great in the lead role as Chris, turning in a great everyman performance as someone very clearly out of their element already discovering something sinister is going on. I also really liked Allison Williams as Rose. I can't really elaborate but there is a moment late in the movie that had me busting out laughing. You'll know it when you see it. But she also tackles the loving girlfriend trying to calm her boyfriend's nerves while also trying to help. Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener are great as the parents. Whitford does a great balancing act as portraying someone who is warm and welcoming but yet as the film goes on seems more and more sinister. It's also great to see Catherine Keener in a film again, doing a great turn as Missy, who like Whitford is great at being warm and concerned and then turning around and being incredibly creepy. The film's MVP though is LilRel Howrey as Chris's friend Rod, who works as a TSA agent and clearly takes his job way more seriously that just about any TSA agent I have encountered yet. As the film's main comic relief, he is a hoot as he tries desperately to get help for Chris.
Get Out functions both as a satisfying horror thriller and also as a deeper examination of race relations in the country within the confines of genre film. It's a bold film filled with both genuine scares and some genuine laughs making for a great mix that helps the heavier themes of the film work more smoothly. I genuinely look forward to seeing what Jordan Peele makes next.
When I heard Bill Paxton passed away, I thought back on all his iconic roles over the course of his career. The smart mouthed Hudson in Aliens, a sadistic vampire in the underrated Near Dark, the smarmy used car salesman posing as a spy in True Lies, the courageous stormchaser in Twister, the obnoxious older brother Chet in Weird Science, a man seeking a lost diamond among the wreckage of the sunken ship in Titanic, the troubled father convinced he is on a mission from god to kill demons in Frailty (a film he also directed and I reviewed here). There are countless others but the one I kept coming back to was his performance in the dark thriller A Simple Plan.
Hank Mitchell (played by Bill Paxton) lives a simple life in rural Minnesota, working at the feed mill and living with his wife, Sarah (played by Bridget Fonda), with a baby on the way. One day, while out with his brother Jacob (played by Billy Bob Thornton) and Jacob's friend Lou (played by Brent Briscoe) they discover a crashed plane in the woods. Checking it out, they discover that inside is not only the body of the pilot but a duffel bag full of money totaling roughly four and a half million dollars. The three men decide to keep it with the provision that Hank hangs on to the money until Spring when the plane is found and if nobody asks about the money, they'll split it up evenly and then all of them leave town. What starts as a simple plan begins to slowly unravel as mistrust and suspicion begins to grow between the men. As the three men dig themselves in deeper and deeper and the bodies begin to fall, Hank finds himself scrambling to find a way out of this increasingly dire situation.
The film was directed by Sam Raimi at his most un-Sam Raimi. The wild camera tricks and exaggerated violence that became his trademark is nowhere to be found here, aside perhaps for one moment (you'll know it when you see it). He treats the material of the film with the utmost seriousness that it deserves and the film works all the better for it, making every twist of the plot that much more gut-wrenching as Hank keeps digging himself in deeper and deeper, doing things he never thought he would do. Scott B. Smith wrote the screenplay, based on his novel and weaves a tight little tale of three men in way over their heads and along with Raimi does a wonderful job of slowly building the growing tension over the course of the film. They are also helped by a wonderful score by Danny Elfman that really sets the mood for the film.
When the film was first released back in 1998, it was Billy Bob Thornton who got most of the attention as Hank's mentally challenged brother Jacob, even earning an Academy Award nomination in the process. While Thornton's performance was good, I always felt like Bill Paxton's performance was overlooked. He gives such a great performance in this and it was his turn that made the film stick with me for the past nineteen years. Bill Paxton lent a certain guy next door charm to the role that I think a bigger star would have hurt the film. I felt like I knew this guy and that is part of what made the film so effective and made me empathize with his character as the world around him starts to spin out of control. Paxton was able to capture so much of his character's anguish and in turn had me squirming in my seat as Hank just dug himself in deeper and deeper, with Bridget Fonda as the Lady Macbeth of the Upper Midwest urging him on. If I had to rank the best Bill Paxton performances over his career, I'd rank this one at number one. It has stuck with me over all the others for all these years.
A Simple Plan wasn't a huge hit when it was released in theatres back in 1998, but gained a certain reputation once it hit DVD, which is how I first saw it. It was a film that was often compared to Fargo, but aside from both being snow swept crime stories, this one had a much more serious tone while Fargo had a stronger comedic edge to it. So, the comparison feels a little inaccurate to me. Still, A Simple Plan is a superior thriller filled with great performances that just never quite got it's due when it was released. It is however well worth checking it out if you've never seen it. If you subscribe to Hulu, it'll be on there starting 3/1/2017.
I will say this right up front so that you understand where I am coming from as a reviewer. I will watch anything with Charlie Day in it. I've been a fan of his since It's Always Sunny in Philidelphia started through Pacific Rim, Horrible Bosses, Horrible Bosses 2, and now Fist Fight. There is just something about him that never fails to crack me up. That being said, Fist Fight is a total rip off of Three O'Clock High.
Andy Campbell (played by Charlie Day) is an English teacher at Roosevelt High, a school filled with some of the most undisciplined and wild kids ever and to make things even worse, it's the last day of school. He's asked by fellow teacher Strickland (played by Ice Cube) to help fix the A.V equipment in his classroom, which he does. When they discover the problem is a student in the class turning the power off on the T.V with an app on his cellphone, Strickland goes postal and busts up the desk with a fire axe. When Andy admits to the Principal what happened, Strickland challenges him to a fist fight in the school parking lot after school at 3 o'clock. Now, with the help of the school guidance counselor Holly (played by Jillian Bell) and the Gym Teacher Coach Crawford (played by Tracy Morgan), he has to figure out a way to get out of it by 3 o'clock as the hours tick down to the increasingly inevitable fight.
There is so much about this film that felt familiar to the original film (without crediting itself as a remake at all), that I just shook my head throughout. Just about every beat Charlie Day goes through is straight from the earlier film. Perhaps not in the same order and not exactly the same, but still very similar. There are even entire scenes that feel lifted directly from the previous film with only slight adjustments. Now, don't get me wrong, it was at times a very funny film. It was also a very raunchy film that went for the shock gag a little too much. The script, written by Van Robichaux and Evan Susser, has the opportunity to go for some real biting humor about the state of the American Education system but time and again goes for the easy laugh every single time.
Still, there were moments of hilarity throughout the film. The much discussed talent show scene towards the end of the film was the one true gut busting moment for me. Jillian Bell as Holly was a standout as she is quite possibly the worst Guidance Counselor ever as she openly states she takes drugs and lusts after one of the senior students. She quietly steals nearly every scene she is in. Likewise, Tracy Morgan scores some laughs as the clueless Gym Teacher. Charlie Day delivers as well, showing that wound up anxiety about him as the day wears on that never fails to crack me up. Ice Cube on the other hand pretty much plays the same tough guy character he's been playing since forever with very little variation.
Overall, Fist Fight, is a sporadically entertaining comedy that never is quite as hysterical as it wants you to think it is. It has a few laughs in it, but not enough to recommend seeing it in the theater. But it'd make okay rainy Saturday viewing but is probably not something particularly memorable. Also, Universal, you might want to call your lawyers. I think you might have a case. They totally ripped off your movie.
