BY GLENN WHIPP >FILM CRITIC

It has taken more than two years, some initial championing from Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, further campaigning by the likes of Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen and Patton Oswalt and some killer kung-fu on Conan, but -- finally! -- the much-buzzed-about indie comedy “The Foot Fist Way” arrives today. (Albeit, just at Hollywood’s Arclight, with more theaters to be added next week.)

What took so long?

“I know! What the (bleep)?” says Ben Best, one of the movie’s writers and stars. “For the past two years, this is all we’ve heard. Every
time I talk to my parents, I get in arguments with them. They’re like, ‘So when’s the movie coming out?’ For TWO YEARS I’ve heard
this.”

“And you find yourself parroting studio speak that doesn’t make any sense. ‘Actually, spring isn’t a good time for comedies.’ What?
People don’t like to laugh when it rains?”

And yet … the delay might be a blessing in disguise. Since Ferrell and McKay picked up “Foot Fist Way” as the debut feature for their
Gary Sanchez production company, the movie’s cheerfully polite creators have gone from obscurity to fame, losing their day jobs and
any resentment they had in the process.

Danny McBride, who plays the movie’s self-deluded tae know doe instructor, won parts in “Hot Rod” and “The Heartbreak Kid” and will be seen in the summer’s two most anticipated comedies -- Ben Stiller’s “Tropic Thunder” and the stoner crime thriller “Pineapple
Express.”

Right now, he’s making a $100 million movie version of the Saturday morning sci-fi series “Land of the Lost” with Ferrell.

Jody Hill, who directed “Foot Fist Way” and wrote it with Best and McBride, is off in New Mexico, shooting “Observe and Report” with
Seth Rogen playing a mall security guard mixing it up with local cops. Best’s rock band Pyramid will be scoring the movie. The three
friends have also teamed for an HBO pilot that could turn into a series.

“There’s definitely a sense of ‘what the (bleep)’?” McBride says of the trio’s turnaround in fortune. “We’ll be sitting around, having a
few beers and it’ll kind of hit us how crazy it all is.”

McBride, Hill and Best met in the fall of 1995 at North Carolina School of Arts. There they drank a lot of beer and watched a lot of
movies, hoping someday to make a movie that other dudes would watch while sitting around drinking beer. OK: They mixed in a few classes, too. A week after McBride graduated, he worked second unit on classmate David Gordon Green’s debut, “George Washington.”

Years passed. McBride worked with Green again, this time acting in “All the Real Girls.” He sold a screenplay for some walking-around money. Hill, meanwhile, hated every minute he spent working as a story editor for MTV’s “Real World/Road Rules Challenge.” But he managed to save $30,000 for his grief and headed back to North Carolina.

Says Best: “Jody came to town and said, ‘Hey you want to make a movie?’ and I was like, ‘I need to do something because it's falling
apart.’ ”

“Rehab wasn’t working,” McBride jokes. “Let’s make a movie.”

Shot in 17 days on Hill’s savings and money he got from filling out every credit card offer that arrived in the mail, “The Foot Fist Way”
follows dim-bulb tae kwon doe instructor Fred Simmons (McBride) whose Great American Dream melts down after he catches his wife cheating with her boss.

Casting aside self-inspection, Simmons hits the road to meet his idol, a Chuck Norris acolyte named Chuck the Truck (Best).

Odd things happen in the movie, but they’re not the kinds of situations you might expect. Hill and crew steered clear of kung-fu
wackiness. Hill took tae kwon doe lessons as a kid and made it to black belt. (In fact, the strip mall club in the film is a studio Hill opened before he went to college.)

What Hill wanted to do with “Foot Fist Way” was make a character study in the naturalistic vein of his filmmaking heroes -- Robert
Altman, Hal Ashby, John Cassavetes.

A modern inspiration: Ricky Gervais’ “The Office.”

The movie’s plot is secondary to the emotional journey the character takes, even if here, that character could be charitably described as a village idiot.

“There’s all types of martial arts instructors,” Hill says. “But the only ones you see in movies are either crazy or ‘take the pebble from
my hand’ guys.”

“Foot Fist” was an audience favorite at Sundance -- in 2006. Apatow caught it on DVD shortly after and burned copies for Rogen and Jonah Hill. McKay and Ferrell saw it, too. Actually they both watched it several times to make sure their initial giddiness was warranted.

“There’s an intimacy to the movie that’s pretty special,” says McKay, the director of “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.” “They make you laugh in a way where you get a sense of the culture and friends creating it. They have a great view of the South, respectful but able to enjoy the eccentricities of the region, too.”

Indeed, “The Foot Fist Way” can be seen as the movie equivalent of a good Drive-By Truckers song, skillfully sending up southern culture with audacious wit and a modicum good ol’ boy respect for elders. (See sidebar: “Myrtle Beach Drunk.”)

And though the movie, shot three summers ago, is something of a distant memory now, its creators will always be thankful for the way
it jump-started their careers.

“We wouldn’t be anywhere really without it,” McBride says.

Adds Best: “I’m just glad people are gonna be able to finally see it. Now my parents won’t be calling me anymore.”

SIDEBAR: MYRTLE BEACH DRUNK

In "The Foot Fist Way," Fred Simmons' party-girl wife tries to help her husband understand a moment of indiscretion.

"It got out of hand," she tells him. "I got really drunk. Like, Myrtle Beach drunk."

What exactly is "Myrtle Beach drunk"?

North Carolina natives Danny McBride, Jody Hill and Ben Best explain what happens when things go wrong south of their border.

McBride: "Myrtle Beach back in the day was considered a family vacation spot. Through the years, it's turned …"

Best: "Disgusting. Dangerous."

McBride: "People in the South would save up for their big vacation to Myrtle Beach where they'd cut loose and get down."

Best: "I always thought `Myrtle Beach drunk' was when you get really sunburned and have the raccoon thing going around the eyes and you finally get so drunk that the sunburn don't hurt any more."

Hill: "And we made it a point of reference. That Fred's wife had done something really, really horrible in Myrtle Beach that got them kicked out of their hotel."

Best: "If you don't have regrets after visiting Myrtle Beach, then you haven't visited Myrtle Beach."

If you think these guys are exaggerating, consider this: The top hits for "Myrtle Beach" and "drunk" are DUI defense attorneys and YouTube videos of inebriated vacationers.

>Glenn Whipp

RELATED LINKS:

REVIEW OF 'THE FIST FOOT WAY,' BY BOB STRAUSS