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review

Charlie Day as Andy Campbell and Ice Cube as Strickland in the New Line Cinema and Village Roadshow Pictures comedy Fist Fight.Bob Mahoney

The first rule of Fist Fight should be that we don't talk about Fist Fight. The second rule of Fist Fight is that when all else fails – and believe me, it does – throw in another penis joke. A stunningly unnecessary comedy, Fist Fight perpetuates unoriginal characters, a preposterous premise and a half-hearted stand-up-for-yourself message. We have a rundown high school where teacher morale runs low and students and a race horse on meth run wild. Ice Cube (in 21 Jump Street snarling mode) plays a history teacher driven to fire-axe hysterics by the apathy around him. Charlie Day (in jabbering Horrible Bosses mode) is an E.E. Cummings-spouting teacher and family man who just wants to keep his job. Short story short: Cube's teacher challenges Day's teacher to a fight in the parking lot after school. "It's on," the Cube man says. But it isn't. The film is off. Hollywood was partly built on its dreaming up of reasons for its actors to be punching one another. What a pity it would be if they've run out of ideas.

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