Comedian-turned-radio host Adam Carolla is a native of Los Angeles, boxed in Golden Gloves tournaments in his youth, and worked for many years as a contractor. If he seems to fit snugly into The Hammer's main character, Jerry Ferro, it might be because Jerry's an L.A.-based contractor who used to be a boxer. It might also be because Carolla came up with the story on which the screenplay is based, wisely tailoring the tale to his own strengths while working around his shortcomings as an actor.

Whatever the reason, it works. The Hammer is a small movie, one that doesn't break any new ground, but it's well-crafted and pleasant to watch. Ferro's more of a lazy, self-destructive schlub than one imagines the real-life Carolla to be, engineering both a job loss and a break-up on his 40th birthday, and sleepwalking through his part-time gig teaching boxing classes at a local gym. His best pal, Nicaraguan ex-pat Ozzie (played by Carolla's old friend and radio-show regular Oswaldo Castillo) tags along, mangling English phrases is very funny ways, and Ferro has his eye on one of his students, a lawyer named Lindsay (Heather Juergensen). When a gruff, old-school boxing coach invites Ferro to try out for the Olympics, he really has nothing to lose, kicking off a riff on the old underdog-gets-a-shot-at-glory story

It's a surprisingly deft film, albeit one that's extraordinarily lightweight. As a reviewer, it's difficult to figure out what to say about it, now that I've provided the basic overview -- it's enjoyable but not terribly memorable, although there were a few scenes that made me laugh purely because of their geographic specificity. (Having grown up in L.A. myself, Jerry's sarcastic commentary on the La Brea Tar Pits appealed to me in a way that only someone who'd been forced to visit it eight times during elementary school could appreciate.) There's nothing wrong with The Hammer, and a lot that's right about it -- there's just not a lot of there there.

Juergensen, who starred in Kissing Jessica Stein, is very good as The Girl, and even gets some dialogue that allows her character to be a little bit more than a cheering section for Ferro's boxing journey, and if there's any justice we'll get to see more of her in future films. The direction, by Charles Herman-Wurmfeld (Juergensen's husband, and the director of Jessica Stein) brings a workmanlike competence to the picture, although, to be fair, the script didn't call for any fancy footwork.

It would be interesting to see if Carolla's able to play a character that isn't so transparently modeled on himself, because he brings a comfortable, smart-mouthed Everyman quality to the screen, and he has great presence. In this case, he's made a good, not great, film that sincerely honors the Underdog Sports genre, and perhaps that's enough. There are worse ways to spend a couple of hours than with a movie like this, even if it won't end up on any "best of" lists at the end of the year.

The DVD, from The Weinstein Company Home Entertainment, offers up a solid transfer with a few nice extras. The deleted scenes are all bits that were best left on the cutting room floor, but they're interesting to watch. The outtake reel seems to be included simply out of obligation, as there's nothing here that's especially entertaining. But the commentary track, featuring Carolla and screenwriter Kevin Hench, is often hilarious, and a conversation between Carolla and Castillo is laugh-out-loud funny.

***

Dawn Taylor's featherweight days are long behind her.

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