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| Benas' Fight Club | |
|---|---|
| Directed by |
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| Written by | Liam Casavan |
| Starring |
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| Distributed by | Neon |
Release date |
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Running time | 175 minutes (original runtime) 224 minutes (Director's Cut) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1000 |
| Box office | $43 milion |
Benas' Fight Club is a 2024 American independent absurdist comedy thriller film directed and written by Liam Casavan and co-directed by Lincoln Reynolds, who also stars in the film along with Benas Cepaitis, Kellen Leclaire, and Bob Mulligan.The film is about three teenagers in a Seattle suburb (played by Benas, Kellen and Lincoln) who start a fight club out of boredom and find themselves on the run from the local sheriff (Mulligan) after Benas accidentally kills a man during a fight.
Following the cancelation of a feature film about his math teacher, Casavan announced a film with the title of "Benas' Fight Club; And the Rules Are You Fight Benas and if You Win You Get 100 Dollars and if You Lose You Have to Kiss Benas" to massive audience support. However, seeing as the story he had would likely be disappointing to the audience, he created a new story more focused on the fight club. It was filmed on a small budget of only a thousand dollars in August 2024 in Washington.
The film was scheduled to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, but it ended up getting delayed due to conflicts with the film's length and content. Originally running for nearly 6 hours, it was trimmed by the directors to only 175 minutes. As a compromise, a director's cut was released 9 months later containing some scenes not seen in the movie and expanding the running time to 224 minutes. The original cut is presumed to be lost. When the film was finally released by Neon, it was a mild success at the box office, grossing $43 million and significantly made back its budget. However initial critical reception of the film was polarized. While some enjoyed the film for its absurd content and commentary on obsession and savagery, others found it overlong and unnecessarily shocking. Since then it has become a cult favorite, and critical reception has improved.
Plot[edit]
Note: this summary excludes events seen in the director's cut
In Sammamish, Washington, three 9th graders, Benas, Kellen and Lincoln are seen joking in a classroom. One day they talk about relationships and Lincoln proposes an idea for a fight club. They talk about where to put it, and are so caught up in the idea they forget other people can hear them. On the first day of the fight club, they are shocked when they find about 7 other people there. Lincoln plays a clip from the 1999 movie Fight Club explaining the basic rules of fight club, adding the rules of Benas’:
"You fight Benas, if you win you get $100 and if you lose you have to kiss Benas."
The first person to fight Benas ends up being Cy Khalili. Benas wins. As the week goes on Benas’ fight club gains more traction. By Thursday their fight club has 39 members. Little do they know of the impact Thursday will have on their lives. That day, Lachlyn fights Benas, and for the first time in the club’s history, Benas loses and Kellen gives Lachlyn the money. Benas is clouded by rage when Nahom decides to fight next, even more so as Benas wants to get revenge for Django Unchained. He ends up killing him accidentally. Lincoln tells the crowd not to tell the authorities. However at 12:34 AM Benas wakes up feeling that the police are already going to try and search for them. He calls Lincoln who calls Kellen and the three of them decide to go on the run to Fall City to avoid persecution, finding three motorbikes and riding to town.
The three of them get to Fall City and sleep at a motel. The next day they sneak into a bar where they encounter the sheriff, Amanda Zener. She is vitriolic about the death of Nahom, her 4th cousin in law. She begins a conflict with Benas and threatens him. The group leaves and starts Benas’ Fight Club: Part II. Only a few other people join the fight club at the start. Benas wins against all of them. The next morning Amanda is run over by a steamroller and Benas becomes the sheriff. The number of people who join the fight club multiplies by 13 and Benas continues to be the champ, until he fights Kohanna. She wins 100 dollars and Benas takes a break not wanting to kill another black kid. The next morning they hear the sheriff is close and plan to leave, but Kellen gets Kohanna to come with because of a wet dream he had the night before. They take her with them and steal a Honda Civic, engaging in a brief car chase with the sheriff.
After they lose him they drive for a bit and Kohanna tells them they should go up a river to get to another town and further from the sheriff. They stop at some place and find a canoe, and another canoe is on top of the car. They go canoeing slowly up a river, but they go faster when they hear a banjo. When the banjo gets louder they paddle as fast as they can. The sheriff is, unbeknownst to them, not too far, and Kellen is shot and bleeds to death. Benas Lincoln and Kohanna are uncertain of what to do with Kellen’s body, Kohanna wants to throw him in the river which they do.
They go a bit further and get to Ellensburg. There they start Benas’ Fight Club: Part III with the help of a young man named Max Mar. They try to start the club, and get some attention, but are soon informed there is a more popular fight club run by Will Schroetter. Benas tries to talk to Will but he is unavailable. To Kohanna’s dismay, Benas and Lincoln plan a terrorist attack on a nursing home where the fight club is, with Benas bombing the building and Lincoln shooting Will to death. With that fight club gone, Benas’ Fight Club III becomes yet another success, and Benas wins every round.
The next day they hear the sheriff is near, but they feel they can’t avoid him. That afternoon, Benas, Lincoln and Kohanna go into the woods to find the sheriff. When they find him, Benas and Lincoln cannot decide who will kill him. Lincoln stabs Benas, and shoots the sheriff, and does both to Kohanna before burning down a tree and laughing.
Cast[edit]
- Benas Cepaitis as himself
- Kellen Leclaire as himself
- Lincoln Reynolds as himself
- Bob Mulligan as The Sheriff
- Kohanna Haugen as herself
- Maxwell Mar as himself
- William Schroetter as himself
- Amanda Zener as herself
- Cyrus Khalili as himself
- Nahom Landry as himself
- Alexander Counts as himself
- Lachlyn Glasgow as herself
- Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden (in Fight Club clip)
Production[edit]
Benas' Fight Club is known for it's troubled production, which began with a completely unrelated project. In October 2023, Liam Casavan announced to his Algebra 1 class he had began work on a film about his math teacher, Bob Mulligan, which would be a largely fictionalized account of his life, including him going to Harvard University, living in Japan and serving in the Iraq war. The film was titled Bob: The True Story, and was slated to be released in October the following year. The film at first starred Casavan himself as the main character, with Leo Crane starring as his best friend Kyle and several actresses (including Grace Lin and Capri Stewart) considered for the role of Mrs. Mulligan. It was also stated to run for over 3 hours, having an intermission. The casting later changed with Crane eventually becoming the main character, Kellen Leclaire starring as teenage Bob and an even younger Bob being played by Isiah Gibson.
In February, it was announced the film would change significantly. Instead of being a 3 hour epic film about Bob's life, it would be a 4 1/2 hour neo-Western, half being a 1960s-set remake of Once Upon a Time in the West, and the other half having elements of other westerns such as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Unforgiven, in which Bob becomes a powerful local outlaw but flees to Argentina after a heist gone wrong only to come back after being lured by a Brazilian outlaw. The film would star Crane, as well as Benas Cepaitis, Ray Javed, Luke Stacey and (tentatively) Annabel Hazan. It was rumored to be shot on location as well, and to star many more actors. The film eventually shifted gears back to being a comedy, as the director felt that he couldn't beat the original film.
In May, due to strong backlash from Alex Counts, Casavan announced he would cancel the project, which disappointed many. However, he also announced a new title: "Benas' Fight Club; And the Rules Are You Fight Benas and if You Win You Get 100 Dollars and if You Lose You Have to Kiss Benas". The film immediately generated excitement and Casavan began work on the project. According to Casavan, the original story of the film was far different from the finalized results. In it, Konata Izumi wakes up in a house with the only explanation being a tattoo that says "Property of Robert De Niro", which prompts her to go on a journey through the United States to find De Niro. This story line, despite some positive feedback, was discarded because he thought it would be disappointing to people who wanted more of Benas' Fight club itself. So in a weekend he created a new story line that received positive feedback. Around this time he also shut down rumors of another story set in Bozeman, which later became Casavan's next film, Bozeman.
Editing[edit]
The film is said to have taken more than a month to edit, even after shooting was finished in August. This is due to disagreements over the film's content and how long the film should be. Initially the film was scheduled to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, but it became clear the film would not be able to be completed prior to August, the deadline of the festival.
There are said to be four separate cuts of Benas' Fight Club. Initially the film ran for five hours and fifty eight minutes, in a cut that consisted of nearly every scene shot for the movie. This cut was immediately rejected, as no one involved found the cut to be satisfying. Later, while it was agreed that the movie would realistically have to be at least close to three hours, no one was exactly sure what to change. The ending was particularly divisive. Liam wanted it to end with Lincoln killing Benas, the sheriff and Kohanna, while Lincoln supported an alternative in which he shoots and kills the sheriff in a duel, while also being killed himself, and the next morning being buried and Benas' Fight Club Part III continuing to thrive. His cut also included more explanation into the sheriff's character, with the group finding more information at a few scenes of the film.
To compromise, a Director's Cut was later assembled in 2025. This cut contains scenes not present in Liam's original cut, but has his ending. It also has scenes not present in either Liam or Lincoln's cut, such as a scene in which a hitchhiker with a banjo (played by Casey Segura) is picked up in Benas and Lincoln's canoe, only to later be knocked out and killed. This cut was released in late 2025, a few months before the release of Casavan's Bozeman.
Release[edit]
Benas' Fight Club premiered at the Grand Illusion Cinema in Seattle on December 22nd 2024, and was theatrically released in North American theaters on Christmas day. It was distributed by Neon, who he pitched the film to and accepted reluctantly to distribute it, despite their executives not liking the film. In markets outside of North America, such as Japan, South Korea and Australia, it was distributed by Sony Pictures Classics. The film grossed $26 million domestically, much against expectations which expected it to only make at maximum $3-10 million worldwide, and $17 milion in foreign markets.
The film was subject to censorship in many countries. Notably in the Middle East, where the film was initially slated to be released on January 14th, but was soon pulled from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, likely due to the film's graphic content including several male kiss scenes. It was also banned in Iran.
Reception[edit]
Benas' Fight Club polarized both critics and audiences. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 73% based on 405 reviews. The critic's consensus reads, "A strange, surreal and oddly thought provoking odyssey held together by an irresistible set of main characters". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film a "C-" on an A+ to F scale.