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Balls
of Fury
(2007)
I wanted to like Balls of Fury. The
trailers suggested it would be a dumb but hilarious parody
of martial arts tournament films (Bruce Lee's Enter
the Dragon in particular). Dumb but hilarious generally works for
me. Instead, it's one of the most painfully unfunny films in recent
memory.
Ping pong wunderkind Randy Daytona (Brett DelBuono) competes for a
gold medal in the 1988 Olympics, but loses in humiliating fashion to
an arrogant East German player (Thomas Lennon). Worse, his father
(Robert Patrick) bet heavily on him and is killed on the orders of
crime lord Feng (Christopher Walken) when he can't pay his debt.
Nineteen years later, the adult Randy (Dan Fogler) is a low-level Reno
entertainer until FBI Agent Rodriguez (George Lopez) enlists him in a
plan to get to Feng through his underground ping pong tournament.
Writer/director Robert Ben Garant and co-writer Thomas Lennon are two
of the three creators of Comedy Central's Reno 911!, a frequently
hilarious parody of police reality shows, so it's a mystery to me how
they could make a film so totally bereft of laughs. It's like they've
never seen a comedy before and are just making their best guess about
how to create one. Perhaps they were replaced by pod people. I don't
know. I do know that this film is an abject failure as a comedy. It
might have some future use as an instrument of torture, though. The
only thing even mildly amusing in the whole film is the entire cast singing along
to Def Leppard during the end credits. And for a film about a ping pong
tournament, the competition scenes are almost non-existent.
Tony Award-winner Fogler is likable as Tony, and there are times
where you see what a funny guy he could be with the right material,
but then the awfulness of the script buries him again. Walken can
usually make a film, even a bad one, better simply by his presence,
but not this time. Lopez is flat as the FBI agent with James Bond
fantasies. DelBuono as the cocky younger Randy, Lennon as the German
champion, and James Hong as Randy's trainer fare better despite the
material they have to work with. Patrick's scenes are so few that
you'll quickly forget he was even in it. Aisha Tyler is too good and
too funny to be wasted on the role she has here. Maggie Q is supposed
to be the eye candy love interest for the hero, but the poor girl
looks so skinny here that I just wanted to offer her some food. Masi
Oka of television's Heroes has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo.
How bad is Balls of Fury? There are more laughs to be found in an
Ingmar Bergman drama. Dumb comedies can be entertaining. Unfunny
ones...well, not so much. Stay far, far away from this one.
-Danielle
Ní Dhighe
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All contents ©
2004-2009 Thoughtsonfilm.com |
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Director:
Ben
Garant
Writer: Thomas
Lennon, Ben Garant
Starring: Dan Fogler, Christopher Walken, George Lopez, Maggie Q, James Hong, Terry Crews, Robert Patrick, Diedrich Bader, Aisha Tyler, Thomas Lennon
Distributor: Rogue
Pictures
Runtime: 90
min
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: August
29, 2007
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