Final Rating: 4.5/5
Balancing on the razor’s edge between satire and speculative fiction, Todd Wiseman Jr.’s The School Duel manages to create a middle school Taxi Driver while sidestepping all of the eye-rolling that might suggest. In the near future, Florida is attempting a new program to curb school shootings in a post gun control America: a tournament of kings and martyrs, as it’s described in snappy social media hype videos, which pits potential school shooters against one another in a bid to purge violence from the schools.
The story centers on Samuel Miller, played exceedingly well by Kue Lawrence, the son of an overworked, conservative single mother. His father, it’s revealed, was an army veteran who committed suicide following a VA mix up with his meds. After writing out a list of people he respects, which he left without a title, he gets into a fight in the boys’ locker room over his father’s dog tags.
When school administrators find the list, they assume it’s a hit list, bringing him to the attention of the Kings and Martyrs recruiter, Captain Stegmann, who manipulates the boy into believing he has a real shot at winning the competition despite being just 13 years old. Swayed by well-edited highlight reels from the previous year’s inaugural competition and driven by his newfound, adolescent frustration, he willingly enrolls and embraces the darkest, angriest parts of himself at the bequest of the adults who run the show. Brilliantly melding allegory and real narrative tension, the film makes its point without belaboring it.
The film is full of great performances. Kue Lawrence is a standout, playing a realistic teenage boy within a hyperbolic story. He plays a sympathetic but misled kid reminiscent of Michael Klammer as Thomas in 2024’s The Teachers’ Lounge. Mercurial and awkward, he is genuinely frightening when wielding his father’s AR-15. Samuel is at a critical juncture in his development, and his corruption is heartbreaking to watch.
Within the film, Christine Brucato, playing his mother Beth Miller, and Jamad Mays, playing Coach Williams, his reluctant sponsor for the tournament, anchor the film with emotional, adult reactions to the teenage horror in which Samuel is too young to appreciate himself. Michael Sean Tighe as Captain Stegmann plays a brilliant villain, manipulative and callous, while Oscar Nunez, with a brief appearance as the flippant Florida governor is as infuriating as it is recognizable in today’s political climate.
A combination of The Hunger Games and The Purge may seem like a cheap knock-off at first glance, but striking and inventive cinematography brings this film out of the B-Movie class one might expect to find it in, giving the it an artistic authority which establishes the film as something to be taken seriously. It is almost entirely in black and white, which helps place the audience in a kind of alternative reality to our own, recognizable but alien.
In the last act of the movie, which takes place during the competition itself, several creative choices are made including the use of first person perspective and a fish-eye lens. Both help to bolster the film’s message rather than feeling merely visually indulgent. All flourishes feel as though they are in service of the story.
At 90 minutes, nothing is superfluous, but stillness and contemplation are not sacrificed in favor of fast pacing. Nonetheless, you get the sense that you are witnessing a boy being fast-tracked to self-destruction and the sense of impotence can feel overwhelming. There are moments of possible intervention, a gun safe has the combination changed or an adult has second thoughts about signing up Samuel, but everything is already in motion. It’s too late now, and even as he questions his own choice to take part in the tournament, it is clear he has no off-ramp.
Lawrence’s performance telegraphs well that Samuel must dismiss his own misgivings in order to follow through on his commitments. We see him grow up just enough to fear his imminent death, attempting to take responsibility for it, and decide he may as well give it all he’s got, since it’s all that’s left to him. It’s revealed to the audience early on that the tournament is rigged: a good kid, the King, who is trained outside of the competition and chosen to represent a kind of ideal, budding masculinity reminiscent of ROTC and Hitler Youth, is set up to win. Samuel is the smallest, the youngest of the bunch, the clear underdog, and some part of you cannot help rooting for him. Winning couldn’t possibly be good for him in the long-term, but at a certain point it feels like the only ending that could bring any relief. Unfortunately, this is not a film which seeks to placate its audience.
Without feeling preachy or smug, The School Duel invites the audience to consider what it means to abandon young, impressionable boys to their environments. With the only people meaningfully engaging with teenagers doing so in bad faith, what can reasonably be expected of the next generation? The culture young men are coming of age into feels designed to make them the worst versions of themselves, and without harping too long on any one cause, whether it be access to guns, online propaganda, or the fascistic trajectory of modern politics, The School Duel paints a picture of what we should learn to accept from Generation Alpha moving forward, unless someone somewhere finally intervenes.
The School Duel was seen during the 2025 Fantasia Film Festival. Thank you to Fantasia for the screener.
