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Hammer, The
Independent Film Circuit

9.4 based on 12 reviews Read critic reviews How did we calculate this? based on 24 votes Read user comments Rate this movie

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MPAA RATING: R for brief language

Starring Adam Carolla, Oswaldo Castillo, Jonathan Hernandez, Harold House Moore, and Heather Juergensen

Jerry Ferro's 40th birthday has brought his life into sharp relief, and it's not a pretty picture. A once-promising amateur boxer who quit so he wouldn't risk his perfect record of underachievement, Jerry has been knocking around from one construction job to another and spinning his wheels in an unsatisfying relationship, all the while with an eye toward eventually getting his shit together. His last connection to the fight game is the evening boxing class he teaches to middle-aged, middle-class, middle-management types at a gym in Pasadena, where he also works as a handyman. When venerable boxing coach Eddie Bell asks Jerry if he'd like to spar a couple of rounds with Malice Blake, an up-and-coming pro, Jerry reluctantly steps into the ring. Despite the butt-kicking Jerry otherwise receives, a one-punch knockdown of Blake convinces Jerry that it's time to make his return to competitive boxing. Thus ends a 20-year layoff and begins a hilarious fish-out-of-water quest for Olympic gold. (Independent Film Circuit)

GENRE(S):	Comedy
WRITTEN BY:	Adam Carolla (story) Kevin Hench
DIRECTED BY:	Charles Herman-Wurmfeld
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: June 24, 2008  Theatrical: March 21, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

75

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

It's genuinely funny, oddly romantic and surprisingly engaging for what could easily have been an obnoxious vanity project.

75

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

The Hammer benefits from Carolla's low-energy, low-impact style. He doesn't so much deliver quips as let them dribble out the side of his mouth.

75

San Francisco Chronicle Walter Addiego

Nothing groundbreaking, but there's an easy charm in the movie.

70

Los Angeles Times Gene Seymour

What you have here, essentially, is a classic "Honeymooners" episode juiced with tropes from the most recent "Rocky" movie.

63

New York Post Kyle Smith

The script depends heavily on familiar stand-up comedy bits, but it's full of sharp wisecracks and slacker charm.

60

The New York Times Matt Zoller Seitz

Rambling and disorganized. At the same time, though, The Hammer also has dry wit and unforced working-class swagger, and hits some surprising emotional notes.

60

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

So many movies these days are overworked or overblown: The Hammer feels genuinely tossed-off. It isn't a great movie, or even a consistently good one. Yet it gets to elusive feelings about failure and success, hope and mortality (and reveals a quietly subversive attitude toward the boxing-movie genre).

60

Variety Ronnie Scheib

This inordinately likable and consistently funny boxing saga-cum-romantic comedy doesn't so much ridicule the "Rocky"-type inspirational sports fable as gently deflate its heroic overdrive.

60

The Hollywood Reporter Stephen Farber

The film hardly could be credited with breaking any new ground, but it has a hangdog charm, much like its leading actor.

50

Village Voice Aaron Hillis

Former "Loveline" and "The Man Show" co-host Adam Carolla brings his self-deprecating, improvisational, regular-dude deadpan--as well as his former Golden Gloves status--to this semi-autobiographical comedy with ambitions so low that one might call it charmingly mediocre.

50

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

If you liked "Rocky Balboa" you should be in good shape, since it's exactly the same movie, just aimed at a teeny-tiny-bit younger demographic and with an affectless leading man who avoids hambone acting by not acting at all.

25

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

Plays like a pilot for a situation comedy about a 40-year-old carpenter who decides to return to the boxing ring.

The average user rating for this movie is 9.4 (out of 10) based on 24 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Chad S. gave it a7:
Jerry Ferro(Adam Carolla) was legit, but he quit. That's why the former-Golden Gloves contender works as a day laborer with no designs forthcoming that portends of a life trajectory any less trivial and lamentable. But despite Jerry's advanced age, the down-and-out carpenter discovers that his aptitude for the sweet science never really left him. "The Hammer" is a superior "Rocky"-knockoff that largely avoids the canned sentimentality and emotional uplift of the overfamiliar underdog sports movie genre by surrounding Jerry with a trainer, a girlfriend, and a best friend who bear no resemblance to their counterparts in "Rocky". The trainer is duplicitous, the girlfriend is well-adjusted, and the best friend is a Guatamelan illegal. "The Hammer" seems closer in spirit to "The Rookie" than the six-part Rocky Balboa saga because this low-key charmer never goes for the knockout punch. In a training montage that doesn't coalesce, Survivor has trouble getting out of first gear, since Jerry's eye is more like the "Eye of the Housecat". In the big fight, "The Hammer" once again avoids the "Rocky" template and is better for it. Big, overblown emotions often leaves the viewer with a hollow feeling. It's overfamiliar. "The Hammer" is small in scale, and realistic about the heights that a forty-year-old boxer could realistically reach. From Adam Carolla, you'd expect another boxing kangaroo picture, but surprise, surprise, this is more like John Turturro's "Mac".

Jay H. gave it a6:
Adam Carolla's style of humor is very endearing and quite funny. Pretty good movie, better than I was expecting. Great cast, well written, nicely developed characters and it has an original approach.

Julie H. gave it a9:
A funny, warm story from the underdog's point of view. I don't get the R rating, but it is a movie about a boxer. I loved the characters (especially Ozzy!), and how good the whole story felt.

Heather R. gave it a10:
This movie was very charming and a great breakout work for Adam! Go Ace Man!

Turn About gave it a10:
Feel free to disregard the snarky, joyless, elitist review from Bill White of the Seattle PI. This film is wonderful and deserves no less than absolute success. A lighthearted, unpretentious comedy with a warm heart.

Vance P. gave it a10:
Great movie, good story, humorous and touching. i have no idea why it is rated R, there is maybe one F word, only blood during the boxing matches. It should be PG 13 take kids to go see it, they will like it. Ozzy is hillarious. a great movie for everyone

Tom S gave it a9:
This is a genuinely funny and likable movie. The "R" rating is completely undeserved -- a couple uses of adult language did not prevent my 11-year old from really enjoying it. Very much a family movie that will appeal to both men and women. (How does metacritic rate this a cumulative 57 with 9 scores over 57 and two under? Retarded.)

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