Stearns apparently likes his comedy as pitch-black as the film\u2019s protagonist, Casey Davies (Jesse Eisenberg in a role he was born to play), likes his go-to coffee order \u2014 after he begins to transform himself from meek, soft-spoken accountant caricature into an uber-masculine blood-thirsty warrior caricature, that is. Formerly a Francophile with a love of chai tea lattes, Casey becomes fully obsessed with the idea of \u201cmanning up\u201d after he\u2019s beaten into a bloody pulp by a gang of masked motorcycle bandits while walking to the pet store to buy some food for his super-sweet (but not super-macho) pet dachshund.<\/span><\/p>\n Tired of being a human punching bag at the office and after hours, Casey (\u201ca girl\u2019s name\u201d) struggles at first to decide whether he\u2019s better off mimicking a certain all-American brand of masculinity by buying a gun or by taking up martial arts. After applying for a firearm license, he stumbles upon a local dojo, where he\u2019s taken by the ritualistic nature of the classes taught by the deceptively zen-seeming Sensei (Alessandro Nivolo) and the out-and-out aggro Anna (Imogen Poots). Casey also happens to be quite suggestible, so when he sees a sign on the dojo wall bashing gun owners, he immediately decides to go with karate rather join the NRA.<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s a rigidity to karate\u2019s system of levels and belt colors that appeals to him on a primal level, and he doesn\u2019t mind the whole \u201cbreak you down to build you back up\u201d kinda system that\u2019s been the backbone of male-oriented groups like fraternities, the military, and even street gangs since, well, basically forever. When Sensei tells him he needs to quit learning French (so feminine!) and get into German (a man\u2019s language!), become an ardent fan of heavy metal, and trade his dachshund in for a German shepherd, Casey not only jumps \u2014 he asks how high.<\/span><\/p>\n It isn\u2019t until he goes to the dojo\u2019s whispered-about night classes, however, that he finds out what\u2019s really happening behind the scenes under Sensei, who rules his studio with an iron fist. Suddenly, the ideals Casey has been slavishly absorbing are called into question.\u00a0<\/span>The whole thing plays out like a graphic novel come to life (much like the 2017 adaptation of Daniel Clowes\u2019 <\/span>Wilson<\/span><\/i>), moving abruptly from episode to episode and focusing in on rather cartoonish characters who always say exactly what they mean and exist in a <\/span>Repo Man<\/span><\/i>\u2013like universe where everything is store brand. Unfortunately, the story itself seems more suited to comic book length, as Stearns\u2019 general concept \u2014 and deadpan tone \u2014 wears out its welcome well before the film reaches its rather obvious conclusion. There\u2019s a strong backbone to <\/span>The Art of Self-Defense<\/span><\/i> \u2014 Stearns could probably just do with a little more self-discipline next time around. What do you get when you cross Napoleon Dynamite with Fight Club and maybe a touch of Yorgos Lanthimos? Writer-director […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":568,"featured_media":12322,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381,340],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","category-movie-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/crookedc-01.svg\")
<\/a><\/span><\/p>\nGrade: B-<\/span><\/h3>\n
1 hr., 44 min.; rated R for violence, sexual content, graphic nudity and language<\/em><\/h5>\n
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