The Art of Self-Defense (2019)
Directed by Riley Stearns
Casey is attacked at random on the street and enlists in a local dojo led by a charismatic and mysterious Sensei in an effort to learn how to defend himself. What he uncovers is a sinister world of fraternity, violence and hypermasculinity and a woman fighting for her place in it.
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27 films that influenced The Art of Self-Defense
What critics say influenced The Art of Self-Defense
Stearns's second feature mines similar territory to David Fincher's brooding classic, Fight Club (1999).
His style touches on both the comic absurdity of a Coen Brothers movie and the graphic, giddy violence of Fight Club, but the tone shifts often feel queasy, as if Stearns wants to critique these things but revel in them too.
If films like In Bruges, Dr. Strangelove, Fight Club, and The Favourite are your type of comedy, then The Art of Self-Defense is not only a must-see, it’s an easy contender for the best film of the year so far.
El arte de defenderse (The Art of Self-Defense, 2018), segundo largometraje de ficción de Riley Stearns (Faults, 2014), invita a las comparaciones con Fight Club (Dir.
A caricature of toxic masculinity that watches like a navelgazing, mumblecore Fight Club, Self-Defense uses zero subtlety as aesthetic affectation.
Twenty years ago, Fight Club presented a satirical look at the male psyche and our obsession with consumerism.
The Art of Self Defense, which also premiered at this year’s SXSW, is a darkly quirky film (think Napoleon Dynamite meets The Lobster).
The Art of Self-Defense jokingly plays out like the Rex Kwon Do scenes in Napoleon Dynamite.
Stearns mostly films this in a flat, affectless style that recalls Napoleon Dynamite .
If Cobra Kai was surprisingly nuanced (an ’80s bully discovers introspection) and Shaft was a little reactionary (’70s sex machine teaches his millennial son how to fuck), The Art of Self-Defense is the arch, arthouse take on the genre that lands somewhere between Wes Anderson and Napoleon Dynamite .
To dismiss The Art of Self-Defense as Napoleon Dynamite for psychopaths is both reductive and somehow strangely appropriate at the same time.
Sort of like Bruce Lee’s “Be like water, my friend,” except that he’s more like the buffoon-sensei extraordinaire in “Napoleon Dynamite”—Rex Kwan Do. “Kick with your hands and punch with your feet,” says sensei.
The Art of Self Defense, which also premiered at this year’s SXSW, is a darkly quirky film (think Napoleon Dynamite meets The Lobster).
No Retreat, No Surrender by way of The Lobster, The Art of Self-Defense and its lightly dystopic dojo might be the year's strangest genre mashup.
Similar to Yorgos Lanthimos (particularly in the vein of Dogtooth and The Lobster ), there is a brilliant minimalist aesthetic that extends to not the physical style of the movie, but also to the way that relationships exist between characters.
Fight Club by way of Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster), Riley Stearns’ screed on “might is right” toxic masculinity is a giggly black comedy that cowers down a twisty-turny rabbit hole.
It brings to mind the monotone yet naturalistic style offered up in Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster or The Killing of a Sacred Deer .
My first thought was that it’s like a cross of “The Lobster” and “Kick-Ass,” a dour existentialist parable mixed with a goofy martial arts flick.
Director Jody Hill’s feature debut, The Foot Fist Way (2006), took another approach to this martial-arts-as-codpiece conceit, leaning into the sad-sack cringe comedy of a hapless schlub throbbing with unjustified self-confidence.
In case it’s not clear, that big picture tone is “pitch-black comedy,” and it’s the general depiction of humanity and expressed philosophy that the film invites comparison to movies like Jody Hill’s The Foot Fist Way and Observe And Report.
This eccentric dark comedy is like "Fight Club" mixed with "The Foot Fist Way." It's delivered in a droll style wherein the characters' dialogue sounds like they're reading an instruction manual, and it sneaks up on viewers by eventually morphing itself into a compelling thriller.
It’s hard to extract much real satire from a movie that sometimes feels like Stearns self-consciously attempting push an amalgam of The Foot Fist Way and the “Rex Kwon Do” scenes in Napoleon Dynamite into more overtly malevolent territory.
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Similar to Yorgos Lanthimos (particularly in the vein of Dogtooth and The Lobster ), there is a brilliant minimalist aesthetic that extends to not the physical style of the movie, but also to the way that relationships exist between characters.
There, he's mesmerized by a charismatic Sensei (Alessandro Nivola) who preaches an ultra-violent karate philosophy to his obedient gang of alpha-males-in-training. He's reminiscent of the evil sensei from The Karate Kid , only he's less likely to "sweep the leg" than just snap it like a twig.
“Fight Club” meets “The Karate Kid” in the dark, savage, and absurd satire of toxic masculinity, “The Art of Self-Defense.”
Among other accomplishments, Riley Stearns's The Art of Self-Defense ends the 30-year reign of Cobra Kai, from The Karate Kid, as the most evil and sadistic karate dojo in the history of cinema.
You see this in films like The Karate Kid and even Sidekicks , but those films are different than this one because they have patient, responsible teachers who do not abuse their power.
Writer-director Riley Stearns' SXSW breakout hit The Art of Self-Defense is a bit like someone tried to imagine what might've happened if, in The Karate Kid, Daniel LaRusso had decided to study at Cobra Kai after all.
But if this fable begins life as a twisted take on “The Karate Kid,” it quickly morphs into a cautionary tale in the vein of “ Fight Club .”
In 2014, writer/director Riley Stearns’ feature film debut, Faults, premiered at the SXSW film festival.
Stearns, making his second film (he previously made Faults ), has a feel for character, but doesn't seem quite in control of his tone.
Stearns (Faults, 2014) establishes Casey as the classic 98-pound weakling in search of his mojo, and then throws you off balance with a series of clever twists.
Written and directed by Riley Stearns (Faults), the film follows Casey Davies (Eisenberg), a soft-spoken accountant whose life changes overnight when he is severely beaten by a gang of motorcyclists while walking home from the store.
With this followup to 2014’s Faults, Riley Stearns strives for a dark comedy intoned in Yorgos Lanthimos deadpan.
The Art of Self-Defense could have a lot to say about modern loneliness and toxic masculinity, ideas that writer-director Riley Stearn (Faults) largely decides to deliver as bone-dry, blunt-force satire.
Tonally and thematically, Stearns seems to be chasing the likes of Office Space and Fight Club , or the kinds of films popular in dorm rooms and message boards alike.
Because the latter contains elements of the former, along with some of the social commentary and revenge fantasy of Office Space and Falling Down.
Bingo! “The Art of Self-Defense” may be presented as an absurdist satire, but like the best American comedies — from the workplace ennui of “Office Space” to the competitive one-upmanship of “Talladega Nights” — it doubles as a keen critique of our national character.
It begins as a droll comedy in the same vein as Office Space and gradually becomes increasingly dark and unpredictable once Casey takes karate classes.
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Beyond examining the question, this satire flays it wide open, exposing a netherworld at the karate studio that invites comparisons to Fight Club and Full Metal Jacket, with a shot of modern urgency.
This strange tactic underscores the basic challenges of human interaction while emphasizing the intricate power games between so-called alpha and beta personalities (as psychological mind games go, it’s a subtler take on the agonizing first act of “Full Metal Jacket”).
Casey is born-again hard, but with nice flashes of master Vincent D’Onofrio in “Full Metal Jacket.”
This seems to cure Casey of his stated intimidation of men turning him into a dark creature with a note of Nicolas Ray’s Bigger Than Life .