The Hammer
Weinstein Company, The | Release Date: March 21, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
57
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 12 Critic Reviews
Positive:
5
Mixed:
6
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
It's genuinely funny, oddly romantic and surprisingly engaging for what could easily have been an obnoxious vanity project. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
The Hammer benefits from Carolla's low-energy, low-impact style. He doesn't so much deliver quips as let them dribble out the side of his mouth. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleWalter Addiego
Nothing groundbreaking, but there's an easy charm in the movie. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesGene Seymour
What you have here, essentially, is a classic "Honeymooners" episode juiced with tropes from the most recent "Rocky" movie. Read full review
63
New York PostKyle Smith
The script depends heavily on familiar stand-up comedy bits, but it's full of sharp wisecracks and slacker charm. Read full review
60
VarietyRonnie Scheib
This inordinately likable and consistently funny boxing saga-cum-romantic comedy doesn't so much ridicule the "Rocky"-type inspirational sports fable as gently deflate its heroic overdrive. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterStephen Farber
The film hardly could be credited with breaking any new ground, but it has a hangdog charm, much like its leading actor. Read full review
60
The New York TimesMatt Zoller Seitz
Rambling and disorganized. At the same time, though, The Hammer also has dry wit and unforced working-class swagger, and hits some surprising emotional notes. Read full review
60
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
So many movies these days are overworked or overblown: The Hammer feels genuinely tossed-off. It isn't a great movie, or even a consistently good one. Yet it gets to elusive feelings about failure and success, hope and mortality (and reveals a quietly subversive attitude toward the boxing-movie genre). Read full review
50
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
If you liked "Rocky Balboa" you should be in good shape, since it's exactly the same movie, just aimed at a teeny-tiny-bit younger demographic and with an affectless leading man who avoids hambone acting by not acting at all. Read full review
50
Village VoiceAaron Hillis
Former "Loveline" and "The Man Show" co-host Adam Carolla brings his self-deprecating, improvisational, regular-dude deadpan--as well as his former Golden Gloves status--to this semi-autobiographical comedy with ambitions so low that one might call it charmingly mediocre. Read full review
25
Seattle Post-IntelligencerBill White
Plays like a pilot for a situation comedy about a 40-year-old carpenter who decides to return to the boxing ring. Read full review
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