I can barely remember now what the story is about -- something about an absent mother and a teen girl who feels lost -- and I've been tempted to check it out on DVD but I don't dare. I'm afraid that I'll end up hating the movie and it will ruin the nice memory I have of that lazy afternoon in Berkeley.
I mention all this because Adam Carolla's The Hammer fits into this category. I remember a the preview being mildly amusing but the movie came and went in the theaters so quickly, I barely remember it existing at all. One day, when I logged into my netflix account, The Hammer popped up as a recommendation. I figured, what the heck, might as well give it a try. This is not a great film but it is a thoroughly enjoyable one. I've never cared for Carolla -- I thought his shtick on "The Man Show" as well as on "Loveline" were tiresome at best. His morning radio show wasn't so bad but definitely nothing I would go out of my way to listen to.
Perhaps because the film is scripted, it seemed to really contain Carolla in such a way that it was possible to appreciate his humor without being completely annoyed by his whiney voice or his man-child antics. As horribly cliche as this might sound, The Hammer had a really good heart -- it was a film that could sometimes throw really mean jokes but they never got overly obnoxious (unlike Carolla's radio stuff).
The basic premise is simple: Carolla is an unemployed construction worker who moonlights as a boxing instructor for people who want to learn basic self-defense or just get a nice aerobic workout. A trainer looking for someone to take to the Olympic tryouts spots him and offers him a chance. Hilarity and mischief ensue. The film is about as low-budget as you can get. The boxers take a road trip to Phoenix (why they wouldn't fly is beyond my understanding). The film was made entirely in Los Angeles (not a big deal) but they can't even shoot it so that it actually feels they left LA (during the Phoenix trip).