For the next three weeks, I’ll be reviewing three movies you requested in last week’s column. Polling for future Reviews By Request columns will begin again on January 30.
Over the past few decades, there has emerged in American popular culture something that can be called the “comedy of awkwardness.” In this style of comedy, which draws heavily from British humor, the comedy comes not merely from a character’s strange behavior, but also the discomfort their behavior causes. Often, in comedies of this sort, it’s the surrounding characters’ dumbfounded reactions that generate the most laughs. Comedy of awkwardness has become an integral part of some of the most popular and acclaimed sitcoms in this country like The Office and 30 Rock, and it’s begun making inroads into movies as well.
However, to successfully pull off the comedy of awkwardness, one must walk a thin line. To begin with, the character who generates the discomfort has to think he’s acting perfectly normally. If there’s any sense that this person is aware of how crazy he looks, the comedy is lost. In addition, the audience has to get a sense that the people who surround the crazy character acknowledge, if only to themselves, how strange his actions are. Jody Hill’s The Foot Fist Way gets only the first rule right, while ignoring the second altogether. So in spite of a fine and wholly committed performance by Danny McBride in the lead role, the film never takes off as comedy, coming off not so much funny as simply odd.
The Foot Fist Way focuses on the character of Fred Simmons (McBride), a boorish one-time tae kwon do champion-turned-small town instructor. Fred presides over his dojo with the authority of a drill sergeant, barking out orders and insisting that his students address him as “sir.” Meanwhile, Fred’s life begins to fall apart when he discovers that his wife cheated on him with the manager at her new job. Soon, Fred falls apart and becomes consumed with rage and grief, surely the last emotions one wants to see from a man who makes his living instructing people- children, even- how to fight. Fred discovers that his wife’s boss’ name is Mr. Fisher, and when he assumes that a student, also named Fisher, is the boss’ son, Fred decides to take out his rage on the boy, with predictable results.
But let’s look at that particular scene. A grown man beating the hell from a young boy is not inherently funny, but there are comic possibilities for such a scene if done right. Unfortunately, The Foot Fist Way doesn’t deliver. Hill shows McBride fighting the boy in long shot, but never takes the time to show us how the other characters in the scene feel about this. Just one well-timed reaction shot from a disbelieving onlooker could have salvaged some laughs, but that reaction shot never comes. The whole film is like that- plenty of promise, but very little end result. There are a few scenes that work, such as Fred’s misguided attempts to seduce a pretty female student or a weepy monologue in which he schools a young student in life’s harsh realities, but many more that don’t. By the time the story has become a mano a mano between Fred and karate movie superstar Chuck “The Truck” Wallace (played by the film’s co-writer, Ben Best), the movie’s comedic potential has long since been squandered.
It’s a shame, since McBride’s performance is really very good, in large part because he’s completely convincing in the role. I’ve never taken a martial arts class, but I can imagine that many of the instructors are more or less like Fred, attracted less to its traditions than to the power teaching gives them. Tae kwon do is rooted in self-discipline, but my guess is that most students sign up for martial arts so they can learn to fight, and when one is teaching people who are clearly weaker and less skilled, there can be a temptation to prove one’s superiority by cutting others down to size. In many ways, Fred is the flip side of Chiwetel Ejiofor’s character in David Mamet’s Redbelt, who is more of an old-school purist. Fred, on the other hand, enjoys being in control and doesn’t know any better way to go about it than by intimidating others, and McBride effortlessly projects the arrogance of a man who harbors no doubts whatsoever that he can kick your ass, while also showing occasional deference to those who are more powerful than he is. It makes perfect sense that when Fred’s wife tries to patch up their marriage, Fred insists on telling her, “I’m the stronger man, and you’re the weaker woman.” Although considering what a ringer she's already put him through, is he trying to convince her of this, or himself?
If nothing else, The Foot Fist Way should be remembered as that movie that introduced Hollywood to the brilliance of Danny McBride. McBride had previously appeared as the scene-stealing Bust-Ass in David Gordon Green’s All the Real Girls, but with this film, he quickly made fans of Will Ferrell and Judd Apatow, and has since been cast in such high-profile films as Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder, and the upcoming big-screen version of Land of the Lost. But while McBride’s comic skills are undeniable, there are also moments in The Foot Fist Way that hint at darker undercurrents, leading me to think that he might become a fine character actor if given the chance. The Foot Fist Way isn’t much of a movie, but it announces McBride as a talent to watch.
