An Ordinary Guy Finds His Calling in the World of Karate

Jesse Eisenberg (left) and Alessandro Nivola in
"The Art of Self-Defense"
Photo Credit: Imdb.com

Writer-director Riley Stearns is going to make a name for himself this year.  His second directorial feature, “The Art of Self-Defense,” isn’t just dark and funny, but it’s also bold in how it manages to do whatever it can to subvert your expectations and shock you in between making you laugh.

Casey Davies (Jesse Eisenberg) lives a life devoid of any excitement.  Following a night where he’s mugged, he decides to start taking martial arts classes.  As Casey becomes more in tune with his fighting abilities, his life soon takes some startling turns.

Eisenberg hasn’t been in many memorable films since his breakout performance in David Fincher’s “The Social Network,” so seeing him in a role where his character goes through such drastic changes throughout the story is something to see.  He shows his character’s ineptness when tying to interact with others, but he soon transforms into something that’s much more lethal.  While Eisenberg’s performance may show the type of awkward persona that we’ve seen in several of his other films, this one starts off like that, but will then stun you in how it veers into a different, more disturbing direction.  It’s a wonderful transition to witness, one that may even cause you to fear his character as the film goes on.

Imogen Poots delivers a great performance as one of the dojo’s top students, Anna, someone who as a stoic exterior, but has a simmering anger beneath for past wrongs committed by others.  It’s a performance that may seem one-note at first, but further in movie, this turns out not to be the case.  Soon, Anna begins to open up more to us, Poots engages the audience as she starts to reveal the reasoning behind the actions of her character and inviting us to uncover the mysterious nature of her role.

Alessandro Nivola, who portrays the karate sensei, gives another performance that proves that he’s an actor whose talent deserves more recognition.  As an instructor who makes you question the type of person he is right away, Nivola creates a character who’s effective in how grating his overzealous attitude of self-defense is, having you wonder if he has what’s best for his students in mind.  He’s able to mix the comedic and malevolent aspects of his character well, keeping us on edge as he takes as many unexpected turns as Casey.

The screenplay by Stearns can be pretty unsubtle in terms of its message, but the way in which it goes about presenting its story makes up for this flaw.  While it takes a while for the movie to pick up, it takes a very dark, yet still comedic turn near the end of the first act and brings this film into different territory.  From there, the story takes some entertainingly vicious turns that upend the movie in the best way.  Although the story follows a couple of beats that are similar to those of Fincher’s “Fight Club” and Timur Bekmambetov’s “Wanted,” such as showing a main character in their mundane life and striving towards something better, the narrative unfolds in an unpredictable way that makes this a story at first seem like something you know, but as it goes on, you realize that you couldn’t be more wrong.  In the middle of this is a thought-provoking view of modern masculinity, a view that can make a significant impact on the viewer with its strangeness and realness.

Stearns does a lot to catch you off guard as to how dark this movie can get.  Because of how odd the world of this movie is depicted, it’s easy to go along with the sharp transition that this film makes about half an hour in.  Despite the world that’s shown in this film reflects on current themes, it doesn’t quite look like or feel like our own, which allows for us to become immersed in the off-kilter nature of the film’s setting and make the environment seem absurd enough to take place in some alternate universe.

“The Art of Self-Defense” marks an ambitious continuation for Stearns’ filmmaking career.  Through a timely story and excellent performances, this movie hits the audience as hard as the punches and kicks that his characters inflict on each other.

Grade: A-