‘THE Foot Fist Way” amounts to a feature-length audition to win Will Ferrell’s attention. And guess what? It worked.
Ferrell’s production company acquired this home-brewed indie comedy, which combines the redneckery of “Talladega Nights” with the bad-example-to-the-kiddies of “Kicking & Screaming.”
Three friends from the North Carolina School of the Arts co-wrote and star in the movie. The flick is a showcase for one of them – Danny McBride as Mr. Simmons, a lumbering boob of a tae kwon do teacher with a physique like Salisbury steak and a face like a prison guard’s. He screams inspirational speeches at little kids and stands by as an old lady gets a whupping.
To one prospective student, a cute young woman who’s into yoga, he says, “Meditation’s terrific, but I never heard of it saving anyone from a gang rape-type situation.” When feeling flirty with his wife, he says, “Those shoes are pointy as hell!” Things go awry with the little lady after an office incident when, his wife confesses, she and her boss got drunk – “Myrtle Beach drunk.”
McBride plays this tae kwon dork to perfection, and his co-writer (and director) Jody Hill has a very funny cameo as a fellow combatant. They create a deadpan tone, somewhere between “Napoleon Dynamite” and “Reno 911,” that earns a lot of laughs, but the movie has some dead spots.
The thin plot mainly involves Mr. Simmons goofing around at his studio (where in one creepy scene that should have been cut he crosses the line from Ferrell-ish innocent to threatening creep) and fawning over his hero, a C-movie actor and martial arts master called Chuck the Truck (played by the third co-writer, Ben Best).
The movie is so heavily weighted toward the Simmons character that no one else really gets to breathe. And though McBride’s shtick is brilliant – he could get rich by playing variations on this character for the next few years, and probably will – it could have used a few more imaginative settings. Still, I have to recommend a movie that supplies us with the memorable insult, “I hope your hair turns into dog s – – t.”
THE FOOT FIST WAYTalladega fights.Running time: 87 minutes. Rated R (sex, profanity, fight violence). At the Empire, the Village East.