Balls of Fury
Rated: PG-13
Almost everything about Balls of Fury lead one to believe that it’s a film with massive, furious balls. It’s written and directed by Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, two of the brilliant minds behind Reno 911! and The State. The plot is essentially Mortal Kombat but with Ping-Pong. It has Christopher Walken? What more do you need? Apparently good jokes delivered by talented comedians. The story focuses on young Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler), a former ping-pong prodigy now reduced to dinner theatre showcasing silly little table tennis tricks. But when the opportunity arises to stop arms-dealer Feng (Walken) at his ping-pong tournament, the FBI sends in Randy undercover. But first they have to train him. So if they have to train him, why not just train an FBI guy? And no joke is made at this logic gap. So they take Randy to blind Master Wong and his hot niece Maggie Wong. Apparently there was no room to show Randy improving or the developing romantic relationship with Maggie in this ninety minute movie so they just skip to Randy suddenly being great and Maggie loving him. Despite some short scenes with great comedic actors like Lennon, Terry Crews, and Patton Oswalt, the film squanders most of these opportunities as it blindly stumbles between odd-ball humor and straight slapstick comedy. Neither really works and while there are some funny moments throughout, there’s only one memorable joke and it involves a panda, which is a gimme since pandas are comedy GOLD. Walken, the film’s biggest mainstream draw, is amusing, but he gives you exactly what you expect and nothing as enjoyable as the music video for Weapon of Choice. Balls of Fury isn’t a bad movie, but a painfully mediocre film that should have been one of the year’s better comedies. Words by |