Paramount VantageReview in a Hurry: This discomfiting low-budget comedy vérité can be painfully funny, but the emphasis is on the painful. This goes Way below the belt a little too long and too often.
The Bigger Picture: Ain't this a kick in the head? The Foot Fist Way documents the travails of deluded strip-mall Tae Kwon Do instructor Fred Simmons (Danny McBride), a paunchy, unlikable blowhard with a straying wife and a motley crew of emotionally stunted students.
When Fred's hero, karate champ Chuck "The Truck" Wallace (Ben Best), turns out to be even more of a boor than Fred, Fred decides to reclaim his honor the old-fashioned way: a smackdown! Since Fred is a past-his-prime schlub, and Chuck is a nine-time world champion, it's not going to be easy.
The Foot Fist Way gets high marks for follow-through—the performers are so committed to their bits that it's easy to see why Will Ferrell's production company thought the film was a good bet.
But it's this dedication that makes the whole thing more admirable and less enjoyable. We're in Napoleon Dynamite territory here, the cruel sort of train-wreck comedy that relies on awkward silences and clueless, demented behavior.
It's funny, and when it's just this side of endurable it works. On the other side, though, The Foot Fist Way makes clear the distinction between watching someone get kicked in the groin and taking the blow yourself.
The 180—a Second Opinion: Fans of Napoleon Dynamite and The Office will find a lot to like here, and if you're writing a paper on schadenfreude, you can't afford to miss this.