The Foot Fist Way
Directed by: Jody Hill
Written by: Ben Best, Jody Hill, Danny McBride
Starring: Danny McBride, Ben Best, Mary Jane Bostic, Jody Hill

You may know Danny McBride as the mustachioed up and coming actor with the slight southern drawl who scored supporting roles in two of the summer’s biggest comedy hits (Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express). What you may not know is that he actually got his start doing a couple of low budget indie flicks that went on to become cult classics. His first on-screen appearance was in David Gordon Green’s All The Real Girls, but it was the quirky kung fu film The Foot Fist Way that proved to be the ultimate showcase for his hilarious deadpan humour.

This movie has an aura of legend about it now that McBride has gained traction in Hollywood, and up until now it was a movie that very few people had a chance to see. That all changed thanks to Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, who championed the film to Paramount Vantage and MTV, eventually convincing them to give it a proper release in theatres and on DVD. After being compared to Napoleon Dynamite and built up to be a non-stop laugh riot, The Foot Fist Way doesn’t quite live up to the hype that Ferrell and McKay created for it. When taken in context, however, it’s still an addictive little gem that has its own sense of style and plenty of outrageous laughs to boot.

McBride plays Fred Simmons, an overconfident Tae Kwon Do instructor and self-proclaimed “king of the demo”. However, when his wife cheats on him with her boss at work, Fred starts to take his frustration out on everyone around him (including his students). The only thing that can get him back on track is meeting his martial arts hero, Chuck “The Truck” Wallace, whom he hopes to convince to visit his dojo on testing day. Unfortunately, things don’t quite turn out the way Fred expects them to.

I can definitely see what drew Will Ferrell and Adam McKay to this movie, as McBride plays an oblivious man-child character in the same vein as many of Ferrell’s previous roles. At other times, however, McBride’s performance almost seems to have more in common with Ricky Gervais — most of his interactions with the people around him are brilliantly awkward. He also emanates a natural bluntness that leads to many of the movie’s funniest one-liners.

There’s no getting around the fact that The Foot Fist Way is quite simply “The Danny McBride Show”. If you don’t find him all that funny in the early moments of the movie, your opinion is not likely to improve an hour later. It’s basically McBride’s movie to mold from start to finish, and at times it feels like director Jody Hill merely had to turn on the camera and let him go. I could see some people wishing there were few more supporting characters to bounce jokes off of, but personally I thought Chuck The Truck (Ben Best) and Fred’s best friend Mike (Jody Hill) were more than enough to pick up the comedic slack.

This movie is not as quirky as Napoleon Dynamite, and it doesn’t try as hard either. It feels a lot more “real”, thanks to the lo-fi production and the fact that most of the people in the movie are not actors (believe it or not, they’re fellow Tae Kwon Do students from Hill’s own dojo). A lot of independent films are often described as having a “low budget charm”, but this is one case where the grainy look and understated acting absolutely enhances the experience. That’s not to say the movie has no style, however. A lot of the martial arts scenes have an epic 80s vibe to them, and they are shot with cool freeze frames and slow-mo.

I will admit that at first, The Foot Fist Way felt a little bit underwhelming to me, and I wasn’t sure that the ironic celebration of martial arts was going to be anything new or original. But as time went on, I was won over by McBride and his self-absorbed ways. It lost a little bit of steam again towards the end, but I am convinced that this is a movie that will get exponentially better with repeat viewings. Yeah, it’s not for everyone, and much like Napoleon Dynamite it is destined to divide audiences. In my opinion, this is hands down the funniest performance I’ve seen from Danny McBride to date, and I really hope he gets a chance to headline a major studio movie in the near future. In the meantime, let’s hope Hill and McBride’s HBO series East Bound and Down gets greenlit, because it’s basically the same thing, only more crass!

Regarding the DVD extras, they appear a bit more plentiful than they really are. The “behind the scenes featurette” is really just a sepia-toned montage of really grainy footage set to music, and the bloopers are literally two brief scenes where the actors laugh in the middle of a take. The audio commentary is kind of dull, and man, that alternate ending… all I can say is I hope it was a joke! The one saving grace is the collection of deleted scenes, some of which seem like they may have actually been worth salvaging. — Sean

SCORE:

Recommended If You Like: Napoleon Dynamite, Hot Rod, The Karate Kid, East Bound and Down