Fist Fight

Fist Fight is a comedy set in a high school on the last day of the school year, when the students are restless and budget cuts have staff on edge. Andy Campbell, a mild-mannered English teacher, inadvertently causes the dismissal of Ron Strickland, a colleague with a far more intimidating presence. Strickland responds by challenging Andy to a fight after classes, and word of the confrontation spreads quickly through the school until it becomes the event everyone expects to see. Andy, understandably reluctant to be beaten in front of an audience, spends the day looking for a way out.

Richie Keen directed the film from a screenplay by Van Robichaux and Evan Susser, with Shawn Levy, John Rickard and Max Greenfield producing. Charlie Day plays Andy opposite Ice Cube as Strickland, and the cast includes Tracy Morgan, Jillian Bell, Christina Hendricks and Dean Norris. The production, backed by Warner Bros. Pictures, RatPac Entertainment, 21 Laps Entertainment and Village Roadshow Pictures, cost about 22 million dollars and returned roughly 41 million worldwide, a modest result against its budget.

Audience reactions were middling: on IMDb it holds 5.6 out of 10 from around 49,000 votes, and on TMDB it sits at 6 out of 10 from about 1,340 votes. A critics' rating of 4 out of 10 from 132 reviews places it below even the audience scores. Fist Fight runs 91 minutes and remains a straightforward studio comedy built around the mismatch between its two leads.