THE HAMMER or I'm Sorry Adam

by: bamf 6 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, 3 hours, 13 minutes ago

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Bamf here rematerializing from the void..

I suffer from a tinge of hero worship from time to time.  I find it difficult to divorce my personal feelings from Kevin Smith, which is why I most likely will never write a review for his work.  While I do love the content of his stories, I am even more enamored with how he got to where he is today.  Smith put it all on the line, went 30k in debt and made the movie he wanted to—14 years later that decision has panned out well.  Adam Corolla is another hero of mine.  He made the choice to go after something different in his life right around the age of 30.  One day he meets Jimmy Kimmel at a boxing club in L.A.  Kimmel was doing the sports beat on KROQ in Southern California for the Kevin and Bean show.  Jimmy wanted to get Adam on the show, so he told him to create a character for on air bits; Mr. Birchum was born, and a decade later he has his own morning talk show.  Brilliant.  To say I am a fan of Corolla might be an understatement, I have old loveline shows saved on my computer from when I recorded the show, and I am quite pleased to share the same birthdate with him.  Thanks mom and dad.  I say this all to you so you might understand why what I will do next pains me so much.  I was invited to see a press screening of Adam’s somewhat biopic feature film called The Hammer, and it was god awful.

Jerry Ferro has just turned 40 and he is realizing what a rut his life is in.  As a proficient carpenter, Ferro has never been much more than a back for labor, and a mouth for insults.  He teaches a boxing class in his off hours, and by happy chance is given an opportunity to try out for the U.S.A. Olympic boxing team which is headed for China, the leading country in human rights and pollution controls*.  Will he make it?  Does the surly Coach see something in Jerry that can take him all the way to gold?  Can a 40 year old man compete with the 20 something youth?  Frankly I did not care.

This film does not work because they chose the wrong story for the lead.  This should have been a Private Parts like tale.  The Jerry character is the antithesis of Rocky, and he consistently shows just how much more powerful his mouth is then his left hand.  So when it would seem natural for the movie to progress towards that already biopic rich tale of Corolla, it mires its self in boredom trying to maintain a boxing film.  Granted, The Hammer was far better than Play it to the Bone as a boxing movie, but that feels like comparing a physicians two finger rectal exam versus just one.  The movie completely misses on its story, so everything else falls apart.
I want to blame the director for the finished product. I thought it was lit poorly, cut with no imagination, and failed to capture any sort of excitement.  The training montages were dull and tired.  The only real style of the film can be found when Jerry is about to punch a man out.  He tells his class that the power punch comes from the legs and hip, not the top half of your shoulder blade.  When you get a shot of Ferro’s back foot digging in for the raw power, you know someone is going to hit the canvas.  Beyond that, not much else to talk about on a purely aesthetic front.  So disappointing.

Yes I have baggage walking into this film.  While a devout fan of Adam, I have seen maybe ten minutes of The Man Show.  Corolla is always best in a free form arena like radio or improv.  That is not to say his acting is weak, it is just a waste of his talents.  Reconstituting his rants into a rigid format like this film pays no favors to his glorious Asperger syndrome like abilities.  That being said, why should you see this film?

Because I think I’m wrong.  Maybe I hold the man to a standard which he cannot meet, however I thought his deleted scene on the Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back dvd was pretty good, all thirty seconds of it.  You should see this film because after almost every studio said no to him, he still got the money to make it, and did it all with only a million dollars.  Adam doesn’t get a distributor for the film, fine, he gets it released out of his own pocket and rolls the dice once again.  After seeing Be kind Rewind I was sort of taken back by what I think Gondries’ message was to the film audiences he loves—anyone can do this.  It parlays into something Adam has been saying for some time now and seems completely appropriate in this context. Creating a story for film is not some lofty heady adventure only saved for the elite.  Money will get you better production, but the public still wants good story.  I want to believe in a YouTube world, where the blogger gets it and the corporations don’t, that there is a certain meritocracy wthat allows such things as The Hammer to happen regularly.  I want to see a market here independence doesn’t mean main stream actors taking a pay cut for street cred, or big studios creating a “C” logo that they think will look good in an arthouse. 
Please prove me wrong on this one.  Stick it to the man, and go see The Hammer if you are in one of the ten cities it is playing in this weekend. 
*/sarcasm