There comes a moment in this painfully floundering comedy when the dweebish Mr Campbell (Charlie Day) attempts to wriggle out the coming titular altercation by planting drugs on rival teacher Mr Strickland (Ice Cube). Angered, the latter turns to the attending officers and bellows: “Fuck da police!” And then your soul dies. The end.

If only. Here is a film that continually squanders its cast and your time. Set during the last day of school, Fist Fight trades on extravagantly sadistic student pranks (a horse of meth gallops through the corridors, a mariachi band follows the school principal) and escalating tensions. The weaselly Mr Campbell is scheduled to appear at his daughter's talent show, is expecting a second child any day, and may or may not be fired by the board, when he attracts the ire of O'Shea Jackson Sr.

A fist fight is duly scheduled. So that everybody may learn valuable life lessons about violence solving everything. For real. That is quite genuinely the moral message of the movie. There are Chuck Norris vehicles which place greater emphasis on pacifism.

While it's always a pleasure to watch Ice Cube getting riled up, there are pressure few delights to be mined from this lame, puerile film. The least funny moments belong to Jillian Bell's meth-addicted guidance councillor as she carps endlessly on her inappropriate sexual yearning for "teenage dick". Tracy Morgan and Christina Hendricks are given nothing to work with. Charlie Day reprises his It's Only Sunny in Philadelphia shtick ad naseum and then some more.

Between each and every fizzled zinger there are uncomfortable silences as the cast labour towards extending a slight and dotty premise up to feature length. There is no excuse for a film featuring Ice Cube with an axe to be this poor.

The gross-out movie is back on the block. And this time, the grown-ups take centre stage. Don’t say you weren’t warned.