“Chick Fight” (2020)

Comedy

Running time: 85 minutes

Written by: Joseph Downey

Directed by: Paul Leyden

Featuring: Malin Åkerman, Bella Thorne, Dulcé Sloan, Kevin Connolly, Kevin Nash, Alec Mapa, Dominique Jackson, Fortune Feimster and Alec Baldwin

Released recently on DVD is yet another misguided and seemingly pointless comedy in the form of “Chick Fight” (2020) which was obviously aimed at a certain audience but really leaves the wit and charm at the door while being heavy handed as well as being totally obvious with a framework that has been repeated ad nauseam in so many comedies that as soon as this movie begins any slightly canny audience will know exactly where it is headed.

There are so many comedies being made currently that to even break through into any kind of public consciousness there are any number of elements required, some of these are an truly original concept, a style that makes audiences actually laugh, big stars and new as well as original talent. Of course that does not mean success is guaranteed but it does help, in the case of “Chick Fight” it has one of these elements and it is nowhere enough for this movie to be either successful or funny. In case you have not guessed the element this movie has is a somewhat star studded cast. Unfortunately many of the actors involved in this movie have never really proven to be able to carry a movie within the comedy genre and that statement is no less true here.

The movie is based around Anna Wyncomb who works in a coffee shop and her dad, Ed, who has dated Chuck since her mom, Mary, died nine months ago. One night, Anna and her best friend Charleen, a police officer, accidentally sets the coffee shop on fire after enjoying a joint. Now blaming herself for the incident and totally broke, Charleen takes Anna to the underground all-female fight club and introduces her to Bear, the manager and the referee of the fight club. There, Charleen explains to Anna that the winning fighter puts a dollar bill on the wall with their name on it and the fight club serves as a safe haven for women, who want to cope the problems of their life. Charleen persuades Anna that she must agree to fight in order to resolve her problems. Anna reluctantly agrees and fights in her first bout but is easily knocked out. Anna realizes that her mom founded the fight club and has fought several bouts, a secret that her mom kept from Anna her whole life, dying from cancer six months after her final fight.

“Chick Fight” was written by Joseph Downey and directed by Paul Leyden who it might seem obvious are both men, which on any obvious level seems like an odd choice for a movie called “Chick Fight”. There is no doubt that it is not out of the realms of impossibility for men to create a movie about women or vice versa, but if that does occur, especially in these times, whatever they create had better be funny, insightful, original and most importantly say something that would be worthy of the gender being written about. That certainly is not the case here with broad archetypes that one would expect from something derivative such as this. This movie just seems an excuse to women hitting other women in the guise of some kind of empowerment, but this truly is just the lowest form of denominate in humour, which of course it lacks.

As mentioned the humour like the characters are all straight out of the 1980s era of filmmaking where there are broad archetypes who behave in some way that only men would either find original or even funny. That is the central problem that the type of people who would find this movie even remotely funny are not going to watch it and those that see it will not be entertained in any way which is a missed opportunity which actually sums up at least ninety percent of movies released at the moment.