#122: The Hammer

Release Date: March 21st, 2008

Format: Streaming (Tubi)

Written by: Adam Carolla and Kevin Hench

Directed by: Charles Herman-Wurmfeld

3.5 Stars

For a lot of kids growing up on the west coast in the ‘90s, Adam Carolla holds a strange place in our hearts. In a pre-podcasting world, he was co-host of Loveline, a late night call-in radio show based out of LA. The gimmick was that a real-life board-certified doctor (Dr. Drew) and a wisecracking comic (Carolla) would take calls from young listeners looking for relationship advice and answers to questions about sexual health and behavior.

If you were a directionless teenager, and listened to Loveline long enough, Carolla became a sort of surrogate hero. He was a relatable, schlubby guy from working-class North Hollywood, an ex-jock who barely graduated high school and worked crummy construction jobs through his twenties. When Jimmy Kimmel, then a relatively unknown radio personality, needed a boxing trainer to help him prepare for a gimmick match against another radio host, Carolla showed up to the radio station. He was training fighters part-time at a boxing gym, and liked listening to the radio, so what the hell? During training, Kimmel quickly learned how funny this Adam Carolla guy was, encouraged him to audition for Loveline, and the rest is history.

Then in 2007, with more than a decade of success in radio and television, Carolla pushed all his chips in on a feature film, The Hammer, a semi-autobiographical tale wrapped in an almost Albert Brooks-style romantic comedy. And it works really well. Carolla manages to capture his own unique comedic persona, and it’s surprising how sweet and earnest this movie is (if a bit too formulaic). The modest budget is exposed at times, especially in the boxing scenes, and Carolla is a one-note actor, but this is a movie that has its heart in the right place. 

It’s a funny little love story in sun-baked Los Angeles, about a 40-year-old guy whose life has passed him by, and he has one last chance to make something of himself. Both thematically and geographically, you can tell that Carolla knows this world and this story well. 

Shot on 35mm, in the same neighborhoods that he worked as a carpenter for all those years, and co-starring Oswaldo Castillo (his real-life co-worker from his construction days), The Hammer is a warm, blue-collar, funny story of redemption and love. 

Not bad for a self-admitted loser from the valley.