I am – Hercules!!

A surprisingly witty and accomplished low-budget chunk of cinema that probably deserves more attention than it’s getting, “The Hammer” is “Dancing With The Stars” contestant Adam Carolla’s unlikely character-driven comedy about an aging Olympic dark horse.

Co-created by the team behind the endearingly lesbitastic specialty-house darling “Kissing Jessica Stein,” the low-key “Hammer” probably isn’t quite gay enough to garner much attention from the Independent Spirit Awards nominating committees – but it may be the funniest indie movie we’ll see this year, thanks to its surfeit of imaginative, stealthy and surgically-targeted gags of many disciplines.

It’s the tale of recently-fired 40-year-old carpenter Jerry Ferro (Carolla), a multitalented loser who – thanks to an chance encounter with a big-deal boxing manager – finds himself in semi-reluctant pursuit of an athletic comeback.

Because Ferro’s sacking precipitates also a permanent split with his live-in girlfriend, “The Hammer” doubles as a romantic comedy about a big-brained but underemployed blue-collar dirtbag who must overcome his modest means to woo the lady lawyer he’s teaching to box.

Both the boxing and the dating side of the story land big laughs. Though we’re not spared the sight of a tiny Nicaraguan sucker-punching Ferro’s crotch, the movie will remind the right audiences more of Woody Allen or Albert Brooks’ best big-screen work than Carolla’s ill-fitting “Man Show” on Comedy Central. Most of the “Hammer” gags are as relatable as they are guffaw-inducing – and an improbable number of them resonate as few do in movies these days.

The narrative has its problems – a crucial friendship shared by Ferro and a rival pugilist, for example, is undercooked and hobbles the movie’s denouement – but the flaws don’t make Ferro’s journey unworthy of a hike down to the muliplex. (This assumes you’re lucky enough to live somewhere that gets Carolla’s syndicated morning radio show; only the West Coast cinemas in those locales appear to be booking “The Hammer” at the moment.)

Mind you, my endorsement and the one earlier pledged by that madcap Outlaw Vern fellow are far from the project’s only favorable notices. “The Hammer” isn’t playing Chicago, but Chicago newspaper critics Michael Phillips and Richard Roeper both recently recommended “Hammer” on their national venue, “Ebert & Roeper.” I note also the movie is pulling a whopping 77-percent positive from the top critics surveyed on the Rotten Tomatoes website.

A concluding digression. If you know Carolla only from “The Man Show,” I highly recommend a listen to his far more intellectually accessible morning radio enterprise, now available free nationwide via the Internet (where it is accompanied by considerably fewer commercials) and better than ever since January, when Carolla ditched a mismatched sidekick, the tedious and intrusive former child-actor Danny Bonaduce. For my money Carolla’s only real rival in the talk-radio game is satellite superstar Howard Stern.

Carolla’s superb radio-show website is actually the most efficient way to access to his show, as it allows listeners to zip past the patience-exhausting antics of Bob Saget, David Allan Grier and “roastmaster” Jeff Ross and hone directly in on Carolla’s incisive interrogations of an electic mix of celebs that includes Norm Macdonald, Larry Miller, Sarah Silverman, J.J. Abrams, Jessica Alba, Joel McHale, Judah Freidlander, Julie Benz, Javier Bardem, Kal Penn, Jeffrey Tambor, Eric Idle, Jeff Conaway, Ralphie May, Will Arnett and the like. The guest-free segments are frequently beguiling as well.

Hercules T. Strong
Studio City, California