Bar Fight! essentially amounts to an 80-minute sitcom with a bunch of four-letter words that definitely would not have been allowed on television during a certain peak of the storytelling format. Within those parameters, this movie isn’t too terrible, and for the record, the premise doesn’t immediately seem to require a tremendous amount of ambition. Even so, writer/director Jim Mahoney’s film sort of rests awkwardly between “not trying too hard to do too much” and “trying very hard to be funny,” before moving just as awkwardly into late-stage melodrama that really doesn’t fit the set-up. Everything about the plot here, meanwhile, is almost defiantly predictable, offering not a single surprise along the path to an equally predictable conclusion.
There really isn’t much of a movie here at all, just a couple of characters involved in a post-break-up feud that could be resolved with a tincture of maturity that, one supposes, neither of them has. Once upon a time, Nina (Melissa Fumero) and Allen (Luka Jones) shared a dive bar, which is where they met and fell in love, long before it all went wrong between them. The thing that childishly went undiscussed after the end of the relationship was who had the proverbial right to bring friends or — God forbid — dates to that bar now that they’re through. Mahoney’s screenplay turns that simple conversation into a repetitive series of competitions that make less and less sense as they come and go.
The movie is maybe a little better than that previous paragraph made it sound, since all of the frustrations connected to the experience of watching it lay in observing both Nina and Allen make absolute fools of themselves in the name of proving whatever it is they feel they need to prove to each other. Part of its good will goes to the actors – namely, Fumero and Jones, both likable with a genuinely shared chemistry on-screen, but also the supporting cast. The pair’s best friends are played respectively by Rachel Bloom and Julian Gant, both of whom are very funny (though Bloom disappears for a mysteriously long stretch of the third act for no apparent reason). There are also appearances by Vik Sahay, Dot-Marie Jones, Hope Lauren, and Shontae Saldana as the bar’s management and waitstaff, all of whom appreciably invest in the extended joke.
The big question mark here, though, is whether the joke is worth the investment, and that’s where Mahoney steps wrong. Nina and Allen play blind darts (in a bar filled with people, any of whom could walk into a dart’s path), try pick-up lines on bar patrons, and even engage in axe-throwing, all in the name of proving that this watering hole can be their own respite. The obvious solution is to be respectful, mature adults who can share it without losing their minds.
Nobody thinks of that option, of course, until an admittedly and surprisingly note-perfect epilogue, taking place a year after these events and communicating a few hard truths through glances that say a lot with few words actually spoken. Just before this, though, the movie takes an uncharacteristic swing toward the melodramatic, as the machinations of the screenplay force these two back together temporarily – until their shortcomings as thinking adults get in the way for the sake of furthering the conflict, of course. Bar Fight! is pretty bland as a romance and sort of inexplicable as a comedy.
Photo courtesy of IFC Films
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