Not bad for a one-joke movie, but still unmistakably a one-joke movie, "The Foot Fist Way" suggests that everything we've always feared about strip-mall martial arts teachers is true.

Financed with credit cards and made in 19 days by some old buddies from the North Carolina School of the Arts, it's a rare silly comedy that goes for a sense of realism. Believability is a nice thing to have in a movie that Will Ferrell thinks is hilarious (his company is releasing "Foot Fist" more than two years after its Sundance Film Festival premiere).

But despite some great gags, terrific lines and wonderful behavior from both experienced actors and real Carolina tae kwon do students, the movie loses comic energy by the end of its quick 87 minutes.

Co-writer Danny McBride, who first appeared in fellow Carolina alum David Gordon Green's fine "All the Real Girls" and is popping up in a lot of major new comedies, makes the most of his lead role as devoted but rotten TKD instructor Fred Simmons.

Unlike a Ferrell character, who may be an idiot but is usually good at what he does, this joker can neither fight very well nor live up to the philosophy he preaches.

As a result, Fred's got a mile-long mean streak, and he justifies bullying his young students as somehow imparting the great gift of his foot-fist way. He's all about self-control, though he personally possesses very little of it.

When his floozy wife, Suzie (Mary Jane Bostic), not only starts messing around with guys at her job, but cheats with his idol, the low-rent martial arts movie star Chuck "The Truck" Wallace (Ben Best), Fred totally loses whatever facade of restraint he had.

But The Truck is such a shameless, self-serving hustler, he actually makes Fred look good (when they're not fighting, anyway). Despite his many personal flaws, Fred's commitment to his practice is sincere; he's like Chiwetel Ejiofor's character in "Redbelt" without any of the dignity. McBride creates some real poignancy as he explores the gap between Fred's warrior bravado and dithering insecurity.

Director and co-writer Jody Hill has a black belt in the Korean martial art and knows how to stage bouts for laughs. The film looks cheap, but there's nothing wrong with that because a) it was, and b) so is the world where it takes place.

"Foot Fist Way" does follow a pretty predictable pattern, though, and that ultimately blunts its hilarity. Regardless, it's probably destined to become as popular among guys who live in their parents' basements as it already has with Hollywood's top comedians.

Bob Strauss (818) 713-3670

bob.strauss@dailynews.com

review>

THE FOOT FIST WAY

>R: violence, sex, language

>Starring: Danny McBride, Mary Jane Bostic, Ben Best.

>Director: Jody Hill.

>Running time: 1 hr. 30 min.

>Playing: ArcLight, Hollywood; AMC The Block 30, Orange.

>In a nutshell: Funny enough for anything with this limited of a scope.