Seeing everything that I can at the cinemas means that,
whether I like it or not, I’m gonna have to subject myself to crap. I’ve come
to terms with that; it’s part of the “job” description and the hate I end up
generating serves its own therapeutic purpose. However, today’s film is an odd
one with that in mind… in that I have been actively putting off watching this
thing for a while now.
Maybe it’s because I know how Ice Cube movies of late
usually turn out, maybe it’s because I have already shown a certain dislike for
most of Charlie Day’s live-action filmography, or maybe the trailer just looked
like garbage from the premise alone. For whatever reason, I kept postponing
going out to see this one. Of course, emulating the feeling of those anxiously
waiting for the appointment for their emasculation, I just wanted to get it
over and done with because I’m fairly certain that the wait is going to be far
worse than the act itself. And speaking of intense pain, let’s get into this
thing already
The plot: On the last day of school, with senior pranks
happening all over the place, teacher Andy Campbell (Charlie Day) just wants to
make it to the end of the day so he can help out his daughter’s talent show
performance. Unfortunately, he finds himself on the bad side of hard-nosed
history teacher Ron Strickland (Ice Cube), to the point where he challenges
Campbell to a fist fight in the parking lot after school finishes. As news
spreads of the fight, between students and teachers alike, Campbell has two
options: Find a way out of the fight or get thrashed by Strickland.
You know you’re in for a weird sit when Tracy Morgan is
easily the most consistently funny person here. Seriously. Day is okay but he’s
mainly stuck in panicked jabbering mode for most of the film and the schtick
gets tired really friggin’ quickly. Morgan as the sports coach and Jillian Bell
as the school counsellor basically serve as Campbell’s anti-cheer squad, and
again Morgan is pretty good but only by comparison. Specifically, by comparison
to Bell’s constant references to drug use and ogling the male students. Because
it’s still funny if a woman’s being the sexual predator, right?
Christina
Hendricks shows up for only a few moments, which kind of sucks because her
psycho-vengeful routine might have brought some actual laughs if the filmmakers
had the common sense to use it properly. Kym Whitley is incredibly obnoxious as
a bitchy 911 operator, Dean Morris as the principal is grumpy to the point of
blandness and Kumail Nanjiani as the security head is decent but nowhere as
memorable as his role in Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates. As for Ice Cube,
he’s actually one of the more dependable presences here, playing up his
character’s uber-aggression to surprisingly solid ends.
The comedy is admittedly a lot better than I was expecting
going solely on the premise… but it’s still not all that good. The absence of the usual wacky similes is appreciated
but this film still comes across as a bit desperate for laughs at times,
starting nicely with the setting of senior prank season. Now, the most I ever
ended up doing during this time was a few flour bombs, but I’ve seen some
pretty decent pranks in my time. About half of the ones here even qualify in
that regard.
Yeah, we get some good efforts like paint bomb tripwires but
otherwise, it’s pretty tame shit. Parking in a teacher’s space, Silly String in
the principal’s desk drawers, a dick being mowed into the football field lawn
that was apparently so good that it needed not one but two follow-ups? When the film is built around amped-up
ridiculousness, this is a poor effort. Then there’s the dialogue, which ranges
from ramblings meant to fill up the line-a-rama to asides where the other
characters explain the joke we just saw. Or, worse yet, an aside from the
character directly involved reiterating what we just saw them say on-screen.
Because Ice Cube struggling to use a coffee machine so desperately needed to be
elaborated on, apparently.
That said, it’s not all
awful and the best parts come from when it actually focuses on the titular
throwdown. This is where Ice Cube’s casting really
makes some waves as his very no-bullshit attitude makes for a very engaging
performance, and he works as a good straight-man for the nonsense going on
around him. His intimidation in this scenario in and of itself becomes funny
after a while, nicely offsetting Day’s high-pitched whining for the most part.
This comes to a head once we get to the actual fight and, for all the build-up
the film gives it, it’s a pretty cool sequence. Decent use of school equipment
to do some damage, nice choreography and plenty of “damn!” moments to go
around.
Of course, its overall impact is dampened by how it tries to wrap this
“American school system sucks!” message around it, in effect giving the main
conceit some form of grander relevance. Rather than anything noteworthy, it
just feels like the film is trying to give a justification, any justification, for what we are
seeing; much like the majority of pranksters we see, it is weak. Besides, when it comes to showing a dead-end school where
violence is the only way anything gets resolved, this film’s no Crows Zero.
Well, here’s a bright side I never would have saw coming:
The soundtrack is bloody fantastic! Given a good bedrock by composer Dominic
Lewis, featuring a lot of bombastic metal to set up the epic fight (featuring
RATM drummer Brad Wilk throughout), there’s also some excellent uses of
licensed tracks here too. Laisse Tomber Les Filles (or Chick Habit for you
Death Proof fans) as Monet’s entrance theme, RTJ’s Lie Cheat Steal set against
one of Andy’s less admirable moments, a pretty awesome Big Sean moment
involving the talent show, a Prodigy/Public Enemy collab to conclude the fight
that is just about the most epic thing ever, a rendition of Crossroad Blues by
Tom fucking Morello, even the use of hip-hop bangers by Onyx, Kool Keith and LL
Cool J; this is the kind of music you want as the backdrop for something this
drenched in off-beat testosterone. This film may fall short in quite a few
respects, but if nothing else, it has a soundtrack that I can already tell will
be a high watermark for this year’s output.
All in all, I certainly didn’t hate this as much as I was
expecting but don’t mistake that for this being out-and-out good. While I like
some of the jokes and the frankly incredible use of music on display here, most
of the actors are either far too annoying or far too underutilized to be of
much help when getting through these very pissweak jokes. It’s lame and rather
annoying, but I’d be lying if I said that I absolutely hated it. If nothing
else, I’ll always have the soundtrack.
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