Writer-director Riley Stearns aims for a very precise tone in The Art of Self-Defense—about a timid accountant (Jesse Eisenberg) who signs up for karate lessons at a dubious dojo after getting mugged—and for the most part the movie manages it. This is technically a comedy, but the dryness of it all, from Michael Ragen’s beige cinematography to Alessandro Nivola’s straight-faced delivery of “is he serious?” aphorisms as the sensei, will only work for you if you notice that the dojo’s hallowed sparring space includes an inconvenient structural pole that’s been wrapped with padding—and the detail makes you laugh. Nivola’s sensei is an unnerving mystery, at turns inspiring, pathetic, and creepy, but Eisenberg’s flinch of a performance is a bit too familiar. And as things go very, very dark in the last third, the tone control starts to slip, eventually sliding away in the final moments, when what had been a sly critique of toxic masculinity turns preachy.
