Florida’s Future Is Bleak, Brutal, and All Too Believable

Read Time:5 Minute, 31 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
The School Duel
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Genre: Drama, Thriller, Science-Fiction
Year Released: 2024 (Festival circuit), 2025 (U.S. release)
Runtime: 1h 30m
Director(s): Todd Wiseman Jr.
Writer(s): Todd Wiseman Jr.
Cast: Kue Lawrence, Christina Brucato, Oscar Nuñez, Clayton Royal Johnson, Eugenie Bondurant, Thomas Philip O'Neill, Jim Kaplan, Kelsey Darragh, Jamad Mays
Where to Watch: shown at the 2025 Fantasia Film Festival

RAVING REVIEW: THE SCHOOL DUEL demands your attention, shakes it, and leaves it wrecked. Set in a twisted, secessionist Florida where gun control is outlawed and school shootings have metastasized into a normalized part of adolescence (okay, so maybe not too far from reality), Todd Wiseman Jr.’s debut feature isn’t science fiction so much as it is prophecy. It takes the notion of "what if things keep going this way" and strips it of metaphor, replacing it with state-sponsored bloodsport—and still, somehow, it doesn’t feel that far-fetched.

Kue Lawrence delivers a staggering performance as 13-year-old Sammy. His journey from unnoticed outcast to participant in a deadly statewide combat program reads like a chilling inversion of the American dream. Trapped between social alienation and the promise of validation through violence, Sammy is precisely the kind of child you fear falling through the cracks in this kind of system—and yet his motivations remain heartbreakingly human. He wants to matter and wants to live up to the ideals of what he thinks his father would have stood for.

Much of the film’s power lies in how it grounds its dystopia in logic. Sammy’s mother, played by Christina Brucato, becomes the film's quiet moral center. Her desperation to shield her child from the system feels tragically futile—less a battle and more a countdown. Wiseman’s script never lets her fade into stereotype. She's not just “the mom who cares”; she's a woman screaming against a machine that no longer listens. She wants so badly to stop the crash course her son is on, all while watching from the sidelines, unable to reach him.

Oscar Nuñez, in perhaps the most surprising performance of his career, leans into authoritarian smarm as Governor Ramiro, a man equal parts televangelist, fascist, and PR puppet. His presence turns the entire game into something that feels both absurd and yet utterly serious—his speeches laced with freedom rhetoric that weaponizes patriotism in the name of spectacle. No villain is twirling a mustache here—just bureaucrats who know how to smile while turning kids into martyrs.

Wiseman makes the bold choice to shoot the film in black and white, a decision that strips the story of gloss and heightens its unnerving realism. Rather than feeling retro or stylish, the aesthetic lends the film a historical quality—like we’re watching documentary footage from a country we hoped never to become. The use of real locations in Florida, particularly its sterile gymnasiums and state buildings, only amplifies the terror: this future isn’t flashy or unfamiliar. It’s just an uglier version of what we have right now, a version that we somehow inch closer to every day. When this film was being created, the horrors of “Alligator Alcatraz” weren’t a reality, and now we’re building detention centers in swamps.

The film draws easy comparisons to BATTLE ROYALE and THE HUNGER GAMES, but the heart of THE SCHOOL DUEL beats to a darker, more intimate rhythm. Where those films often indulge in rebellion arcs and cinematic catharsis, this one offers no such luxuries. It isn’t interested in building heroes or sparking revolutions. It encourages you to confront the consequences of a culture that prioritizes individual power over collective well-being. It’s not just dystopian—it’s disillusioned. Not to mention that those films take place in “future worlds” that still feel like they have fallen, here, the story feels like the next news headline.

If there’s any criticism to be found, it’s that the film’s relentlessness may be too much for some. There are no breaks in tone, no moments of levity to catch your breath. That unwavering sense of doom—while fitting for the narrative—might alienate viewers hoping for redemption or clarity. But Wiseman isn't concerned with comfort. He’s here to make you uncomfortable while staring down reality.

And somehow, despite all the trauma and tension, the film doesn’t feel hopeless. It feels furious. You can sense the director’s outrage baked into every frame. There’s a moral clarity to the filmmaking that never comes across as preachy—just exhausted. The world created here isn’t fictional; it’s an extrapolation. It’s what happens when leaders abandon the future and hand the consequences to children.

At 90 minutes, THE SCHOOL DUEL avoids excess and sticks the landing with purpose. It walks a tightrope between genre and gut-punch. Wiseman’s debut, elevated by a standout performance and sharp social critique, is one of the most unsettlingly prescient pieces of speculative drama in recent memory.

This isn’t a cautionary tale. It’s a snapshot from tomorrow—unless something changes.

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[photo courtesy of EARLY LUNCH, ALLIANCE MEDIA PARTNERS]

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