Chick Fight
Ratings: 3.2/5
Duration: 1 hr 37 mins
Language: English
Genre: Action Comedy
Director: Paul Leyden
Writer: Joseph Downey
Producer: Malin Åkerman, Jordan Beckerman, Ash Christian, Anne Clements, Jordan Yale Levine, Michael J. Rothstein
Music: Benson Taylor
Cinematography: Steve Holleran
Editing: Kevin Armstrong
Art Direction: Natalia Rosa
Release Date: 13 November 2020
Released In: Theatres
Star Cast: Malin Akerman, Bella Thorne, Dulcé Sloan, Kevin Connolly, Kevin Nash, Alec Mapa, Dominique Jackson, Fortune Feimster, Alec Baldwin, Alexia Barlier, Mariana Paola Vicente, Nicol Paone, Julia Sandstrom, Marissa Labog, Vitoria Setta, Ekaterina Baker, Rohan Gurbaxani, Kellen Boyle, Julie Michaels, Mónica López, Shauna Galligan, Holly Dowell
Plot:
When Anna Wyncomb is introduced to an underground, all-female fight club in order to turn the mess of her life around, she discovers that she is much more personally connected to the history of the club than she could ever imagine.
Review:
Director Paul Leyden and writer Joseph Downey seems to have made the female version of David Fincher’s era-defining ‘Fight Club’.
At the centre of the story is Malin Akerman, who also serves as a producer. She stars as Anna, a single Florida woman whose life is falling apart in every way. Akerman, in the lead role of Anna seems to be going wrong in every direction at once. She is financially bankrupt, and she has a non-existent love life. She is still grieving the loss of her mother and is surprised to learn that her father has become ‘sexually fluid’. When the coffee shop Anna owns burns to the ground after an unfortunate accident, it looks like she is hit bottom.
Comes to rescue - Anna’s best friend, a brash, lesbian police officer named Charleen suggests a way for her to work through her many frustrations. She brings Anna to an all-female fight club, where the no-nonsense Bear (Fortune Feimster) oversees the proceedings. There are actual rules of combat and they do force Anna into the situation of having to fight the group’s reigning champ: the fearsome Olivia (Bella Thorne).
Anna’s relationship with Alec Baldwin as her reluctant trainer is relief point for the comic elements. He is a drunk who wastes away his days and nights at a beachfront bar. Director Leyden offers a repeated number of cutaways to the bartender, played by his wife, French actress Alexia Barlier; which gets a little monotonous. Baldwin’s Jack Murphy reluctantly puts Anna through the paces in a series of training montages.
At some point, Chick Fight becomes more about ladies who think saying ‘vagina’ a lot and calling other women ‘bitches’ normally equals badass feminism. NOPE! Leyden and Downey may have set out to make a feminist film but didn’t quite succeed.
Despite Akerman’s charming and vulnerable character portrayal to get badass, Chick Fight churns out repetitive and lazy narrative choices that are way too predictable, seems pushy and hell bent on making or proving a point to someone. The film falls apart for trying too hard.
