After having a busy few weeks, I finally managed to find some time to head out to the movies. I only wish now that I could have seen something better. The only films at the budget theater right now are the end of summer dregs. As a result, I ended up seeing Balls of Fury. I had a feeling it wouldn't be great, but there was enough comedic talent in the cast for me to hope that I might be wrong.
The film pretty much delivered what I expected. This is due, in large part, to the fact that the trailer gave away quite a lot of the movie. Not only had the trailer shown most of the funny moments, it also pretty much told me how the entire story would go.
As I said, there is a lot of comedic talent in the cast and for the most part they each get a few moments to shine. There's a reason they're called 'talent' and it's because they can rise above mediocre writing and still provide the audience with a laugh or two. Christopher Walken, Patton Oswalt, Thomas Lennon, Aisha Tyler, and Terry Crews each bring their unique comedic style to the film, which I appreciated.
The same praise cannot be given to the film's star, Dan Fogler. I found him to be grating and unfunny. This guy has been in three or four different films within the past few months, and I can't understand why. Let's hope Hollywood doesn't confuse this guy for any big talent. Certain people, like Jack Black, can pull off the fat and sweaty look and make it funny. This guy isn't one of them. I found it uncomfortable just to watch him on the screen.
And speaking of uncomfortable, I felt bad for the attractive Maggie Q, who had to play the love interest for this guy. She made not be a household name yet, but she's certainly done a number of high profile movies and doesn't deserve to be slumming it in a film like this.
The story of the film, however, may have been the most disappointing thing. The way everything develops is so familiar and overdone that I thought they were maybe trying to parody other films. But everything is played so straight that I think it was just lazy storytelling instead. On top of the hackneyed plot, too much time is spent on uninteresting or inconsequential matters like the FBI sting and male sex slaves. As odd as it may sound, I would have actually liked for them to focus more on the ping pong. I think they could have had a lot of fun developing creative and funny moves for the players to perform. In a lot of ways, it reminded of Dodgeball. My favorite part of that film is the montage of the tournament. I would have rather seen an extended version of that than the training scenes. The same holds true for this film.
What's interesting is that the writers of the film are Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant, both of Reno 911 fame. These two have written a number of films recently (including Night at the Museum) and I haven't found any of them to be particularly good. I find it hard to believe that Reno 911 can be so enjoyable, yet so many of their feature films have been so lackluster. Given their history on the sketch show The State maybe it's just that these two are incapable of writing something that is funny for longer than 3 minutes.
Balls of Fury isn't as insultingly bad as say The Brothers Solomon or License to Wed but it sure doesn't succeed at what it aimed to do. I think I would probably have more enjoyment and laugh more playing ping pong with my friends than I did watching this. If you enjoy a lot of the comic actors found in this film, you'll probably continue to enjoy them watching this movie, but you would be better off just watching some of their older, better material. Grade: C-
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