The School Duel

In a near future world, all forms of gun control have been outlawed. School shootings are at an all time high. As a solution, the governor of the free state of Florida has established the school duel. Once a year, carefully chose candidates from different schools compete against each other. One will be named king, and wear a golden crown. The others? They’ll be martyrs.

Shot in moody black and white, Todd Wiseman Jr’s grim satire follows awkward teenager Sam (Kue Lawrence), whose whole life revolves around fantasies of being able to assert himself with the aid of a gun. His father is missing in action, presumed dead. His mother (Christina Brucato) has done her best to set aside her grief and focus on supporting him, but it’s not easy. She knows that he gets bullied at school. He’s a lot smaller than some of the other boys – just a late developer. He has no friends. The only other adult who seems to care about him is the coach (Jamad Mays) responsible for teaching the boys to fight, but Sam is a reluctant participant and doesn’t seem to learn anything.

How is he coping? At home he watched videos about guns and plays gun-focused video games. He poses in front of the mirror with his father’s guns, screwing up his face, practising threats like a very young Travis Bickle. He could very well be the sort of kid who shoots up a school, but there are thousands of boys like him in the US. Can church calm him? Men with guns patrol the aisles, like tanks patrol the streets at night. His teacher, hitting him with a wooden paddle, says “This chastisement is a form of God’s love.”

Sam’s mother is like an insect caught in a web, knowing that it’s useless, even dangerous to struggle, constantly alert to the presence of threat, and yet driven by instinct. Her every movement is nervous, jerky, as if compelled rather than chosen. Even when her voice is carefully moderated, her face still, her eyes look out in terror.

When he comes for Sam, the recruiter tells him not to worry – they can keep his selection, the training and all the rest of it ‘confidential’ from his family right up to the last minute.

Wiseman Jr plays most of it very straight, without sentiment, easing viewers into a place where they can take all this for granted. A speech about the fine American tradition of the duel, delivered just ahead of the main event by the governor (Oscar Nuñez) himself, would not really sound out of place on the new today. Aside from Sam’s mother, who is naturally emotional, only the coach, invited along as a guest, seems capable of seeing beyond the elements of ritual, bringing something acutely, uncomfortably human to the surface. Can Sam begin to understand what’s happening at that level before it’s too late?

“Be a wolf,” urges the governor to a line-up of contestants so young that they don’t even know how to be men yet. Sam exchanges shy glances with a girl of a similar age in the cheerleading squad. There is a brass band, of course. We hear traditional American tunes. Wiseman Jr. draws on the visual motifs of traditional American war films.

The film is dedicated to one of its young stars, Hudson Meek, who died aged 16 after falling from a moving vehicle. That tragedy lends weight to those we see on the screen. Meek is good, but at that age, what comes through most clearly is the loss of his potential.

Lawrence and Brucato are excellent, and very well paired. An unexpected last act suddenly opens up the narrative, allowing an awareness of possibility and joie-de-vivre. It is thrilling to breathe free air.

Could it be worth fighting for?

The School Duel screened as part of Fantasia 2025.

Reviewed on: 04 Aug 2025