Review: The Art of Self-Defence

Wimpy accountant Jesse Eisenberg is entirely unpopular at work, barely even being noticed by anyone in fact. One night he gets beat up and mugged by motorcycle thugs. Obviously shaken by the experience, and since his cute Dachshund is hardly a guard dog, Eisenberg considers alternatives of protection. Eventually he walks into a karate dojo fronted by an intense fellow known only as Sensei (Alessandro Nivola). Sensei starts to mould the young man into his vision of masculinity – getting him to listen to death metal music, the puny-looking Dachshund obviously has to go, etc. Eisenberg also learns the art of kicking with your fists and punching with your feet. Much of the film involves Eisenberg alternating between obsessing over graduating to the next level of belt, and observing some pretty obvious toxic masculinity on display by the manipulative Sensei. That’s especially true of his treatment of female student/kids class instructor Imogen Poots, whom Eisenberg starts to take a liking to, despite her harsh rebuffing of him at every turn. Poots is quite clearly ready to reach the highest rank of belt, but Sensei keeps passing her over for one of the male students because he considers women genetically inferior. Meanwhile, Eisenberg (who ends up being hired as the dojo’s accountant) is invited to attend the coveted night class, and Sensei invites Eisenberg and a few other students to go out on a very special exercise. It’s here that Eisenberg learns just how twisted Sensei really is. The question is, can he do anything about it?

 

Well-acted, but one-joke deadpan black comedy from writer-director Riley Stearns (whose background is mostly in TV and shorts) is never as consistently enjoyable as you’d like. There’s just not enough to it, at least nothing terribly original, just a couple of clever little bits and pieces. It’s a basic idea that has been done plenty of times before (“Fight Club” obviously springs to mind), and despite the performances it’s not memorable at all.

 

The lead character is also incredibly off-putting. Jesse Eisenberg is terrific and perfectly typecast in the role, don’t get me wrong. However, I found the lead character was putting me at a distance with their behaviour/demeanour. He was just a little too pathetic for me, and so I just didn’t care about him or the story, which involves a twist you’ll see coming almost immediately. Alessandro Nivola (the only thing I liked about “Face/Off”) is outstanding as the wacky instructor, however it’s still a clichéd character as well. Having said that, as much as it’s a cheap gag, the constant feminisation of Eisenberg’ character and supposedly feminine name (Casey) is pretty amusing. The idea of the students wearing their coloured belts in their daily lives is also pretty cute. But that’s mostly it, it’s…amusing. Sometimes. In fact, the only real laughs come from how the deified grandmaster died, and later a bit with a body part bent gruesomely the wrong way. The rest is just mild chuckles and smiles, and even then I’m probably being a bit polite. Imogen Poots meanwhile, is completely wasted in a role that probably isn’t quite as worthy as she might’ve thought.

 

You want to like the film, but it’s just not up to snuff overall. The underrated Alessandro Nivola is terrific as the idiotic and possibly psychotic martial-arts instructor, who is also clearly a misogynist pig. His crazy teachings have their amusing moments here and there. Otherwise this is a far too thin black comedy based on characters and situations you’ve seen played out plenty of times before and better. It’s somewhat watchable, but with a thin script, an obvious twist, and unlikeable characters, it doesn’t add up to much. 

 

Rating: C+