When my sister mentioned The Hammer to me I ran through the usual questions I ask whenever someone recommends me a movie I’ve never heard of: When did it come out? Was it even in theaters? How did you find out about it? She had no definitive answers so I moved on with a more straight forward approach:

Me: Can you at least tell me who’s in it then?

My sister: I’m not sure of his name. You know…that guy with the eyebrow and he hangs out with the love doctor.

Me: Are you serious? What the fuck are you talking about?

The Hammer follows Jerry Ferro (Adam Carolla), a forty-something construction worker with nothing to show for his life but an old Golden Gloves title and a loyal Nicaraguan sidekick by the name of Oswaldo. Jerry loses his job and his girlfriend early in the movie. Nothing seems to be working for him until he gets a second shot at boxing with a possible Olympic try-out.

It seemed hard for me to believe that Carolla could play an ex-boxer, but I learned that he actually had some amateur experience. It was interesting to find that out and, looking back on it, it did look like Carolla knew what he was doing in his boxing scenes. This legitimacy added to the believability of Carolla’s role. The best part of the movie was watching Carolla’s natural comedic ability in action. In his interactions with his co-star’s, Carolla constantly delivers funny one-liners that seem to come from him naturally rather than from a memorized script. After watching The Hammer, I gained a better respect for Carolla as a comedian.

I really liked Ferro’s heavily-accented sidekick in this film as well. He was genuinely loveable and funny and I looked forward to his scenes with Carolla. His character was so perfect that I was of two minds as to Oswaldo Castillo’s performance. He was either so schooled in the art of acting that the character he played seemed to actually be him, or he wasn’t much of an actor and the character he played was really him. I’m pretty sure it was the latter, but I really didn’t care. I still liked Oswaldo.

As I said before, the best part of the movie was Carolla and his natural comedic ability. Unfortunately, the worst part of the movie was also Carolla. Initially I felt it was impossible to picture him as a boxer but I eventually got over that. It was also difficult to picture Carolla as a leading man and love interest…I could never get over that. Watching Jerry lean in to kiss his new girlfriend Lindsey (Heather Juergensen) was like watching contestants on Fear Factor devour a bowl of ox testicles. It wasn’t pleasant to watch and seemed unnatural.

Although The Hammer was cheaply made and a regurgitated version of any underdog story, it was still watchable. At times I was bored, but the comedic value kept me interested until the end. I knew things would work out for Farro…I just wanted to know how.