It feels like
The Karate Kid (1984) but as written and directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. It feels like Lanthimos' style of dialogue and sense of humor. It also feels like a scenario he would envision. What if the focus of the film was teaching martial arts not in a good way but in a brutal and overly aggressive fashion. Through which, we get a really good satire of what's come to be known as toxic masculinity. It spoofs and exposes the kind of sexism and misogyny that's associated with that toxicity. It's funny in that regard, particularly in how it takes two male stereotypes, two opposing stereotypes, and plays them against each other.
Jesse Eisenberg (
Justice League and
The Social Network) stars as Casey Davies, an accountant or an auditor at some kind of office building working for some company. He's the male stereotype who's more effeminate, more meek, mild and shy. He's capable of engaging with people, but he's not good at standing up for himself or fitting in with his more manly co-workers. He also lives a rather lonely life with his cute, little dog. There's no indication of his family or any connections to relatives.
There's also no indication of the Internet or social media. The reason is because there seems to be no Internet or social media. Casey appears to live in the past, probably in the same decade as the original
The Karate Kid, but, no later than the 90's. No title cards tell us the era. Not much of the scenery tells us anything. No pop culture references exist to establish the time period either. It's mainly in the technology in use, the lack of smartphones and the presence of a VCR. That's the only clue as to where Casey is in recent history.
Alessandro Nivola (
Disobedience and
Jurassic Park III) co-stars as Sensei, the leader and manager of a dojo near where Casey lives. He teaches classes in karate. He's a black belt in fact. He's the other male stereotype that's very toxic. He doesn't yell or scream. He's very soft-spoken, seemingly mild and meek too, but it's all just his tactic for easily expressing gross expressions of sexism and misogyny. That sexism and misogyny are of course also infused in what he teaches.
When Casey is mugged and attacked, he decides to go to the dojo and take classes from Sensei. He quickly starts absorbing that toxic masculinity and uses it outside the dojo to assert dominance, aggressive dominance. He clearly takes it too far until it leads to its obvious result. What's unsatisfying is that the result isn't ever reckoned or properly addressed. It's really a horrible thing that is then dismissed. Things then snowballed after that in ways where one either accepts the absurdism or not. I didn't, but others might.
Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert!
That aforementioned, horrible thing is the killing of a police officer. It was at that point where the dead body count really began to rack up. It's revealed that people in the dojo are brutally attacking and killing people. Given that this film probably is set in the 80's and technology isn't what it is now, it's not totally unreasonable that these murders would go unsolved or such that the police wouldn't suspect the dojo, but given the three deaths, two of which being connected to the dojo, it seems unlikely that the people involved would get away with these crimes. Yet, the film wants us to believe the dojo does get away with its crimes. That didn't seem to hold water.
In some ways, this film reminded me of Andrew Bujalski's
Results (2015). This movie is more absurdist and going for more aggressive and blunt ideas. As such, it's not as satisfying as Bujalski's film. Yet, it does have funny moments.
Rated R for violence, sexual content, full-frontal nudity and language.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 44 mins.
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