Catfight ★★★½

IF you’re looking for something completely different, low-budget black comedy Catfight might fit the bill.

Writer/director Onur Turkel is a relative unknown but delivers up a clever satire and absurdist comedy featuring some nice cameos from a solid cast.

Sandra Oh, best known from TV’s Grey’s Anatomy, and Anne Heche have a lot of fun as the female protagonists of the story, Veronica and Ashley.

Veronica (Oh) is married to a successful businessman and well-off financially whereas Heche’s character Ashley, is a struggling artist. Both women are smart and ambitious and more than willing to speak their minds in any situation.

They are also former school mates who did not care for each other. Through a series of circumstances they both wind up at the same party after many years and from the outset their mutual disdain for each other is still evident.

The friction suddenly erupts into a vicious physical altercation that leaves one of the women comatose for two years. During the ensuing period, the circumstances of the two women change and continue to fuel a bitter rivalry.

The absurdist nature of their feud manifests into several fist fights that resemble the tone of the Family Guy extended battles between Peter Griffin and his nemesis the chicken.

But Catfight also contains many clever moments of satire aimed primarily at western society’s obsession with status but also skewering the war-mongering nature of man.

There are many cleverly written cameos from familiar faces like Amy Hill as Veronica’s crazy Aunt Charlie, who has named all the trees on her rural property, Stephen Gevedon as an art collector, Damian Young as Veronica’s husband, Jay Sanders as a hotel guest who has a confrontation with Veronica and, best of all, Dylan Baker as the “comatose doctor” Jones.

If you see this one pop up on a streaming service give it a look.