Miguel Wants to Fight
Miguel Wants to Fight is streaming on Hulu at the time of writing. Rated TV-MA. Common Sense says 15.
STORY: A-
It’s not often you can describe a movie about cuss-loving teenagers who are constantly obsessed with getting into fights as adorable. Miguel Wants to Fight is the rare movie that can.
It’s more than adorable. It’s one of the funniest films you’ll see this year. It’s smart - it judo chops tired cliches to pieces. But its biggest strength? It’s got more heart than Kroger’s seasonal aisle in early February.
PEOPLE: A-
If the script is a treasure chest full of heart, then it’s the four lead actors who turn the key and open it up for all to see.
Tyler Dean Flores, Christian Vunipola, Imani Lewis, and Suraj Partha are lights out. Lesser actors would have delivered performances drowning in stereotype. Their voices fuse together like a smooth, chart-topping pop band. Sure, their unique harmony is full of vulgarity and violence, but they deliver an absolute bop every time they’re on screen together.
Unless we get a sequel, it’s unlikely the four of them will share the stage again. But like so many great bands before them, I can’t wait to see what they do in their solo careers.
FILM NERD STUFF: A-
Miguel, who has never been in a fight, turns to his friends for advice on how to win one. His buddies tell him he needs to visualize himself winning a fight. He does. And ladies and gentlemen, his visualizations are a highlight of the movie.
Miguel imagines himself, one by one, as the baddest bad-butts in movie history. The film recreates a handful of classic movie scenes (I won’t spoil which ones here). Every small, precise detail made me jump off the couch in joy. Tiny tweaks are occasionally added, and every one of them is a riot. You can tell that some real movie fans worked on this film.
My favorite part of these scenes is the fact that most of us do the same thing. Whenever I had to summon up courage during second grade recess, you better believe I pictured myself as Luke Skywalker swinging on a cable across the Death Star. The homages are fun, but they serve another major function: to show us another way that we’re all the same.
CASTE (Elective Class): A+
Ava DuVernay’s new film, Origins, explores the way that human beings across history have created caste systems (yes, they exist even here in the United States). Caste’s function is to keep certain people at the top by marginalizing other groups of people. People are made to feel less important, less worthy, and less human. People like Miguel and his friends.
Miguel Wants to Fight doesn’t directly address the idea of caste. But it is an example of the type of art that can diminish the power caste has over us. This movie’s small but necessary miracle is that it doesn’t just give voice to kids of color growing up in a rough neighborhood. It shows them as full human beings - full of dreams and hopes and flaws and humor and love and heart and, above all else, humanity.
It reveals an important truth of the world: we’re all human beings trying to figure the same stuff out.
FINAL COMMENTS:
I remember the feeling I got watching the end of Superbad. I’m talking about the scene where Michael Cera and Jonah Hill’s characters are curled up in their sleeping bags, having a real conversation for the first time. In that moment, the raunchy, vulgar teen comedy suddenly transforms into something deeply touching.
I had that feeling the entire time watching Miguel Wants to Fight. This movie’s a winner.