Sunday, September 28, 2008

THE FOOT FIST WAY - McBride's better in small doses

THE FOOT FIST WAY is a star vehicle for American comedian Danny McBride. Up till now, McBride has been a scene stealer in ensemble comedies such as PINEAPPLE EXPRESS. He specialises in playing loser characters who are convinced that they're the best thing since sliced bread. There's something very funny about the arrogance of the dumb-ass, and McBride is the king of deadpan outrageous bullshit. In THE FOOT FIST WAY, McBride plays a Tae Kwon Do teacher with a slapper wife who starts acting out when he discovers she gave her boss a hand job and gets worse when she shags his hero. The movie is filmed much as THE OFFICE was filmed. It's deliberately low-rent, trying to give the proceedings a voyeuristic, docu-drama feel. Accordingly the humour isn't so much laugh-out-funny as wince-inducingly awkward. The conceit of the film is funny as far as it goes, but I couldn't help but feel that I was watching a crazy side-character gone AWOL from the main feature. This kind of character is far better deployed as a side-kick, especially when the resulting movie has little plot and no real change of tone. So, sadly, I can't recommend THE FOOT FIST WAY. 

THE FOOT FIST WAY was released in May in the US and is currently on release in the UK. It was released this week on Region 1 DVD.

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