The directorial debut of Justin Matthews and Luke Spencer Roberts (writers of Prime Video's recent rom-com Upgraded), The Duel is one of the more star-studded independent films of recent memory, with a cast led by recognizable faces like Dylan Sprouse and Patrick Warburton. Although it has thin characters and sometimes repetitive humor, The Duel is an entertaining satire that is just provocative enough to work.

Duel follows two former best friends who find themselves at a crossroads when one sleeps with the other's girlfriend. This leads them to a mysterious estate, where they engage in a ritual duel to the death. Matthews and Roberts take some very ambitious turns with their directorial debut, and while they don't all work, it's at least an intriguing piece of satire.

As independent films go, The Duel makes the most of its limitations to feel like it has a much larger scale than it actually does. The film has very few locations, and almost the entire second and third acts take place in a single mansion. Still, the strong location work and production design, along with the script's ability to effectively cut between storylines, keep viewers engaged.

The duel has a running time of just over an hour and a half, and much of this running time is built around absurdist humor. After a first set-up act that prepares us for the eponymous conflict, the jokes are mainly situational – some variation of "Isn't it crazy that our characters are doing this?" In some scenes, Matthews and Roberts show a willingness to take the film to some darkly comic extremes. While it would have been nice to see more of these moments, there are enough to keep the film lively.