Lately, I've become more and more interested in the work of Danny McBride than when I was closer to the intended demographic his stuff is geared toward. I've recently bulldozed through the promising The Righteous Gemstones, his at times hilarious, at times grossly offensive Eastbound and Down, and his nearly brilliant dark comedy show Vice Principals, and I've come to grow a sincere respect for the way McBride and his regular cohorts in crime, Jody Hill and David Gordon Green, do character work. There is a sincerity beneath their repulsive character quirks, or the rampant vulgarity oozing out of every corner of the frame. McBride and co. aren't just interested in offending you or grossing you out. What they really want is for you to empathize with someone you'd never want to meet in real life.
Those listed above sans David Gordon Green worked on the incredibly low budget indie cult film The Foot Fist Way, which follows McBride as Frank, a delusional Tae Kwon Do instructor as he deals with the collapse of his marriage while trying to convince himself he's still the greatest man on this earth (except maybe for his idol, Tae Kwon Do champion Chuck "The Truck" Wallace). It is the debut film of writer Danny McBride and writer/director Jody Hill, who has worked on and created nearly all of the work and shows Danny McBride has had creative control with. Together with writer Ben Best, they weave private hells for Frank, who just wants to run his dojo and get the respect he thinks he deserves. Unfortunately for him, his trashy wife gets a new job where she drunkenly gives a handjob to her boss. From there on, Frank doesn't confront his overly masculine self image as one would expect given the first Act's build up, but rather bends over backward attempting to retain it. He leaves aggressive and pathetic messages on his wife's voicemail, he sexually harasses one of his students in a completely inappropriate (and rather reprehensible) way, and he beats the hell out of a kid who shares the last name as his wife's boss (who isn't, it turns out, the boss' son as he originally thought). He is not a good person by most common standards, but smartly the writers realize that the only thing we find worse than a reprehensible human being is when we see any human being punished unfairly.
To continue on, spoiler warning, as I will spoil the whole movie from here on out.
One of the funniest things I've heard about The Foot Fist Way is in a one sentence description for the film's entire plot: a man sells his beloved car so he can pay a man ten thousand dollars to beat him up and fuck his wife. It is a hilarious premise when worded like this, but far more painful in action. For all that is wrong about Frank as a person, his one maybe admirable trait, which is at least sympathetic, is naive sincerity. Frank is a simple man with simple pleasures. He enjoys teaching Tae Kwon Do, he enjoys watching Tae Kwon Do, and despite his vulgarity and egotism that is virtually all he wants. He deserves a lot of comeuppance for his atrocious attitude and behavior towards others, but his punishment is in losing trust for the one person he had trust for. It is just unfortunate he trusted someone who is so plainly untrustworthy to begin with.
Frank's wife is never depicted as being anything positive throughout the movie except attractive (or at least I think she's supposed to be attractive). Their relationship is relatively toxic, where she has a blatant disrespect for his passions and he minimizes the effect of any of her efforts. Frank resents her trying and is depicted as a right prick to her, but likewise she is depicted as having lazily attempted at a better life, making his mocking not so much justified as not entirely wrong. "I made a list of people most likely to shoot up the office, which pissed everyone off" she says after her second or third day of work. She is in no way making friends, and afterward says this was "the highlight of my day". She is impulsive and selfish, but she also does not deserve to be treated the way she is by Frank. But Frank gets some comfort from her, knowing he has someone he lives with that he can talk to and with, even if he isn't particularly supportive of her or she of him, so when he finds out about the handjob she gave her boss and she leave him after they fight, he is absolutely torn from that comfort he thought he had into absolute chaos. His attempts to get back on track amount to him doubling down on his most repulsive qualities.
During the mid-point turn, Frank finally meets his idol Chuck "The Truck" and convinces him to do the belt testing for his class . . . at the cost of ten thousand dollars. Outside of Frank's attractive wife, the only other thing he has in his life that could represent the identity he thinks he has is his car, a 1975 or so Ferrari 308 GTS (I don't know cars well enough to tell you which of the production runs this one is, sorry). He sells the car to pay "The Truck" to come do testing, and his wife returns to him to make up for cheating on him and leaving for a few weeks. When "The Truck" comes by, Frank relishes in the fact that on one side he has his wife, and the other his idol, sitting on his couch watching one of his idol's movies (much to Chuck's annoyance). Before the movie even gets going, however, he has to return to the dojo to teach another class, and you can see where this is going. Frank comes back to his wife aggressively fucking his idol, and in a fury challenges Chuck to a fight outside in the backyard. Chuck beats the hell out of him, to which Frank runs away crying and bleeding until he passes out next to the road.
Frank eventually beats Chuck much later, and when his wife tries to get him back (while simultaneously trying to blame him and his dumb life for her cheating), he tells her to fuck off and pisses on his wedding ring. Frank's resolution isn't in maturity, it's in just not allowing himself to be swept up in blame he doesn't deserve. He's extremely flawed, but he didn't deserve what happened to him, and largely that is the appeal to these sorts of dark/cringe comedies. We don't root for the protagonist, we root with the protagonist in what we deem is fair or unfair, separating our personal taste from the conflict that befalls them. Shows such as Eastbound and Down play this differently, making Kenny Powers' horrible nature partially the fault of his conflict, and not excusing him so much as watching in bewilderment at how so many people could put up with him for as long as they can. He abuses everyone's patience to the utmost degree, until they either want to kill him or want nothing to do with him, and he is forced finally to change in his own, stupid way.
What I like about character work such as these is in how it requires us to reflect on what sympathy means to us. We aren't sympathetic because the person is good, but because we believe in a sense of fairness, of morality that itself is concrete enough to apply to even those that do deserve a little balancing out on the karmic scale. We don't just want to see them suffer randomly because they are awful - although a lot of comedic catharsis comes out this way - but rather we want to see them suffer from their awfulness. We want cause and effect, and when this is distorted or disturbed, it makes us anxious. What we really want is to see people learn their lesson, and random acts of conflict or torment aren't lessons learned, but empty catharsis applied. Catharsis is attractive, it's fun, and it's addictive, but it is empty in the end. The Foot Fist Way isn't a classic by any means, but it is an incredibly digestible and often hilarious execution on what makes dark, unpleasant characters so rewarding to watch.
7.0
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