The Foot Fist Way is a strange comedy that, depending on your experience with middle-class, white trash karate enthusiasts, will make you laugh uncomfortably or send you away appalled. I found it rather hilarious, particularly because the world that first-time director Jody Hill captures is not exaggerated much. The Foot Fist Way could’ve passed as a documentary if Hill had really wanted to freak people out, but instead he utilizes the comedic talent of Danny McBride to make the white-knuckle ride into the underbelly of American culture a bit smoother.

McBride has made his mark lately with supporting roles in Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express, but this role proves he’s capable of carrying a film. Small town Tae Kwon Do instructor Fred Simmons has his own karate school, and a wife that looks like a porn star. By all low standard accounts, he is living the American Dream. It all comes crashing down around him when he discovers his wife’s whoredom, and the fact that the B-movie action star he’s idolized for years is actually a raging dick. Heroes are born, women are conquered, and men realize their true worth through combat. It’s not as obvious as, say, Conan the Barbarian, but buried within the deep seeded sociopathy is the true spirit of a warrior. If this isn’t the case, then ultimately it’s a dissection of what it means to be a man in small town America. Horrifying.