Fun
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Nostalgic
Intense
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Choked Up
Curious
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Weird
When we talk about streaming culture, we’re usually enthusing about what’s new, but one of the best things about streaming is how it’s made old and obscure cult hits available to a new generation. Presenting Cult Corner: your weekly look into hidden gems and long-lost curiosities that you can find on streaming.
We’re in the middle of the uncomfortable age of the cringe-com, comedies that derive their humor from being painfully cruel, depressing, and sometimes gross. Think It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia or basically anything on Adult Swim if you need a point of reference. As divisive as this type of comedy is, it can also be hilarious and surprisingly insightful. It’s during this revival that we need to tip our hats to one of the masters of cringe-coms, Danny McBride.
McBride is probably best known creating and starring in the beloved sports sitcom Eastbound & Down, but we’re not here to talk about Kenny Powers. Instead, we want to re-introduce you to McBride’s painfully low-budget, martial arts black comedy, The Foot Fist Way. The Foot Fist Way has a lot of similarities to Eastbound & Down. Both focus on overweight athletes who think they’re big shots but are really punchlines. Both take place in the low-stakes world of minor league sports. And most importantly of all, both revolve around an aggressive and vulgar McBride having to teach children.
The Foot Fist Way follows McBride’s character Fred Simmons, a fourth degree black belt in Taekwondo (not jiu-jitsu. Jiu-jitsu sucks) who runs his own dojang in North Carolina. Fred thinks he’s a pretty big freaking deal — he has a Ferrari and everything — until he discovers that his wife has been cheating on him. The rest of the movie follows Fred as he attempts to regain his confidence. It should be noted that, like all McBride characters, that confidence is neither earned nor deserved. Also? His path to self-respect involved kicking children in the face, which is always funny.
The Foot Fist Way received middling reviews, but it really shows a truncated version of what McBride can do best. McBride is undeniably great at creating self-absorbed characters you simultaneously root for and against. Objectively, you don’t want Kenny Powers or Fred Simmons or McBride’s latest HBO addition, Vice Principal’s Neal Gamby, to be successful because you’re a thinking person who knows these are terrible people. However, all of these characters are so magnetic on screen, you kind of want them to win anyway. Whereas McBride uses that odd duality to criticize white male privilege in Vice Principals, The Foot Fist Way gives a more comedically pure version of this style. Fred Simmons isn’t a narcissistic, aggressive jerk for any other reason than it’s funny to watch a narcissistic, aggressive jerk fail and fail and fail and then, at some point, kind of succeed.
Also, advertising for this movie led to one of the funniest Late Night with Conan O’Brien promotions ever. McBride appeared on the show in character as Fred Simmons. However, most viewers were unfamiliar with both the character and Danny McBride, meaning a large part of America tuned in to watch some person they’ve never heard of do bad karate and insult Will Ferrell for an extended amount of time. That’s Danny McBride’s delightfully bizarre and dark comedic style in a nutshell and should also be reason enough to check out this martial arts gem.
