Balls of Fury

Director: Robert Ben Garant
Starring: Dan Fogler, Christopher Walken, George Lopez, Maggie Q, James Hong, Robert Patrick, Aisha Tyler
Running Time: 90 min.
Rating: PG-13

1/2 * (out of ****)

I've always had this theory that even the worst films have something in them worth recommending. Maybe it's just false optimism but I grant the filmmakers the courtesy they acted with the best intentions and for the most part avoid taking cheap shots. As bad as some films I've seen have been this year and how little value they've contained, I can recall very few that I'd consider totally worthless. That theory is really put to the test with the painfully unfunny and terminally boring Balls of Fury. I pay exactly $1.08 for every movie I rent but this is the only instance I actually felt ripped off and wanted a refund. Perhaps it was a warning sign that the trailer for this movie preceded nearly every theatrical and DVD release I saw this past summer and I could recite lines from the film months before I even watched it.

This may be the first movie where the trailer ACTUALLY IS the movie and this trailer, which barely elicited a few giggles initially, became increasingly less funny with each viewing. When the time arrived to actually see the movie a strange sensation came over me that I had seen it all before. Maybe that's because I have. Only now it felt like it was 170 hours long. It takes a premise with little to no comic potential and somehow finds a way to waste even that and make it seem unfunnier than it already is. Even all the actors in the film look bored and have guilty looks on their faces like they knew how bad this was but just couldn't help themselves. It's time to call it a year because we may have found the worst film of 2007.

Tony Award Winning Actor (!) Dan Fogler is former table tennis phenom Randy Dakota who at the age of 12 suffered an embarrassing defeat in the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea. This loss causes the murder of his father (Robert Patrick), who bet on him to win the gold and was unable to pay up. 19 years pass and Randy is relegated to working the Vegas casino circuit with a silly table tennis routine. That is until he's paid an unexpected visit from an FBI agent Rodriguez (George Lopez) who wants him to undercover to take down the man responsible for his father's death, the devious crime lord Feng (Christopher Walken).

To do so he must go back into training in order to receive an invitation to compete in Feng's underground ping-pong tournament. Master Wong (James Hong), an old, wise blind man and his hot niece Maggie (Maggie Q) take him under his wing and train him to once again compete and win at table tennis against the best in the world. However, if you've seen the trailer I'm probably not telling you anything you didn't already know.

I can't recall laughing once during this entire film. There isn't a single joke you don't see coming from miles away, any character that's the slightest bit amusing or interesting, or a single surprise in the clumsily written screenplay. It's amazing how many jokes the film crams into the longest 90 minutes committed to celluloid this year and how none of them work at all. We have a blind man who who's always falling or tripping I into things, jokes about male prostitution, and a parade of misfit table tennis competitors which include an angry Russian, conjoined twins and a bratty little Chinese girl.

We're supposed to laugh at Randy because he's a fat guy with crazy hair playing table tennis. It was almost as if writers Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon thought that just the mere thought of anyone (much less someone like Randy) playing ping pong is so hysterical it would cause audiences to erupt in laughter. Looking over their list of the five sports not yet treated to a feature film slaughtering they must have jumped through the roof when they realized table tennis was still available. Add in a Chinese underground ping-pong crime ring to spoof martial arts films and all the bases are covered. Pathetically, the first 10 minutes of the film are nearly identical than the similarly themed and titled but infinitely superior Will Ferrell skating comedy Blades of Glory from earlier this year.

After watching the performance of Dan Fogler in his starring debut I've gained a new appreciation for Jack Black as an actor. Fogler does his best impersonation of him here but lacks any of the charisma, comic timing or screen presence. I am aware that stage and film acting are radically different but I still don't know what to say about the fact that he was given Broadway's highest honor in the form of a Tony award. Hopefully, it'll be confiscated after this. That he's co-starring in one of the comedies I'm most anticipating in 2008 (Fanboys) is now making me second guess just how much I'm actually looking forward to it.

They'll be those tempted to see this film because of the presence of the great Christopher Walken, maybe our strangest and most interesting supporting actor. Resist that temptation. Going in I was sure that at least just the scenes involving him would hysterical but even those are obvious and fall flat, making this the only Walken role I can ever recall not enjoying. Maggie Q appeared in one of the best films of the year this summer with Live Free or Die Hard and tore up the screen with her performance. She can now claim she's also appeared in one of the worst. She's completely wasted here.

When Aisha Tyler showed up I had to ask myself a question: WHAT'S SHE DOING IN THIS? Anyone who's seen interviews with her knows just how smart she is and this appearance clearly has no bearing on that since everyone has to pay the bills but this is too much. When she sat in as a guest critic on Ebert and Roeper she offered great insight into why certain films worked or didn't. This is exactly the kind of movie she would have bashed on the show. I know it is. The only actor who avoids embarrassment is George Lopez who is mildly amusing at least until the big scene where he gets to scream the most overused movie catchphrase in pop culture history. He also gets to kick Heroes' Masi Oka in the face, something the show's fans are probably jealous of considering that series' sophomore season.

Toward the end of this movie I heard a loud, crashing sound. It was the DVD remote dropping to the floor after slipping out of my hand. I had fallen asleep for about 10 minutes and it wasn't just a little nap either. If not for that I'm convinced I would have been out cold for the duration of the film and probably beyond. This despite the presence of Maggie Q, Aisha Tyler and a large coffee. It's a good thing the remote wasn't damaged or I'd have to send a letter to the offices of director Robert Ben Garant demanding he replace it.

As for those 10 minutes I slept through let's just say that it would have to be an alternate ending to Citizen Kane to convince me that I missed anything worthwhile. Apparently this disc also had some special features as if the traumatic experience of watching the film itself wasn't enough. Needless to say, I didn't bother with any of them.

Balls of Fury is a complete waste of time and makes the year's other misguided comedy efforts like I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry and License To Wed look like worthy candidates for preservation from the American Film Institute. So if anyone really needs their Christopher Walken fix that badly I'd suggest instead of suffering and snoozing through this mess like I did you pop in some DVD's of The Best of Saturday Night Live. At least there you're guaranteed something funny.