Mr Simmons (Danny McBride) is a Tae Kwon Do instructor who puts a lot of faith in his skills with the martial art, to the extent that he instils all his students with the same self-worth. Or that's the idea, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way, as he finds out over the next few weeks when his life starts to go awry. It started out like just a normal day, and one of the school's many demonstrations to drum up fresh students went as well as they usually did, taking place in a car park to a small but appreciative audience. But Simmon's wife Suzie (Mary Jane Bostic) would be the problem...
The Foot Fist Way was often described as a mockumentary, a style of comedy that had become more prevalent over the turn of the milliennium thanks to it apparently being fairly simple to achieve: come up with a silly situation and some silly characters to inhabit it, and allow the cast to improvise their way to the laughs. Alas, not every one of these was This is Spinal Tap, but actually The Foot Fist Way, which introduced comedian Danny McBride to many audiences, was not really a true mockumentary in that it did not purport to be an actual spoof of a real (fake) person.
There were no allusions to this being anything but genuine, but then neither were there any scenes that made it clear Simmons and his circle of friends were being filmed for documentary purposes either, meaning the result capitalised on the approach but could just as easily have been the feature length pilot for a more traditional sitcom. Only with lots of swearing, as the characters were an uncouth lot, which could generate the odd chuckle, but more often appeared to have been added for flavour and the chance at a higher rating from the censorship bodies of the world. The dialogue was really more serviceable than witty.
But these were not witty people it was following, and although director and co-writer (he showed up in this too) Jody Hill was an expert in Tae Kwon Do, he did present the activity as something not to be taken too seriously when all it seemed good for was breaking squares of wood with your feet or fists, or if you were particularly adept some concrete blocks. The whole philosophical angle was more the source for ridicule, as Simmons' adherence to it did nothing for him, and indeed got him into all sorts of trouble as he found the gap between his supposedly serene mindset engendered by the martial art and the infuriation set off by those around him was too wide.
Every martial arts movie needs a villain, but Suzie wasn't really it, even if she did prove unfaithful to Simmons, which sends him off into his downward spiral of depression. No, the true nemesis comes from a location he would have never expected: his idol, the Tae Kwon Do champion and Chuck Norris style movie star Chuck "The Truck" Wallace (Ben Best, who also contributed to the script). When Simmons takes a couple of his students to an expo where Wallace is performing, along with weirdo expert friend Hill, he's lucky enough to be invited to the star's room to discuss his appearance at one of his demonstrations. When they get there a party is in full swing, and we see that Wallace is your typical bigheaded celeb, who agrees to visit Simmons' school but then tells him it will cost him ten thousand dollars he can barely afford. Here's the nub of the story: Simmons may be an idiot, but unlike Wallace he has integrity, and it was nice to see one of these comedies where the lead wasn't purely a figure of scathing criticism, even if the jokes could have been a lot funnier. Music by Pyramid.
