Crude Humor and Silly Antics
Balls of Fury Fails to Strike

In an apparent attempt to capitalize on the surprise popularity of the kickball comedy Dodgeball (2004), director Ben Garant and co-writer Thomas Lennon have taken another under-appreciated sport and propelled it to mock-legendary status. In Balls of Fury, ping pong becomes an underground sport of intrigue and death. Nevertheless, what may have been a funny film falls way short of delivering a perfect shot.

Balls of Fury
Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler) gets a lesson in holding his paddle from Maggie (Maggie Q) in Balls of Fury. (Rogue, 2007)
Directed by: Ben Garant
Written by: Thomas Lennon & Ben Garant
Starring: Dan Fogler, Christopher Walken, George Lopez, Maggie Q, Thomas Lennon, and James Hong

Rated PG-13 (for crude and sex-related humor, and for language)
Running time: 90 min.

FilmGuru's Rating : 3 out of 10.

Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler) could have been an Olympic ping pong champion. His defeat in 1988 has haunted him for nearly 20 years. Now forced to play on stage at a casino dinner theater, he seems to be a washed up loser.

In a humorous rip-off/homage to Bruce Lee's classic Enter the Dragon, Randy is recruited to play ping pong for the FBI. Agent Rodriquez (George Lopez) recruits him in the hopes that Randy will be invited to an exclusive competition for an underworld crime boss named Feng (Christopher Walken).

Randy isn't ready for the high-stakes competitive sport, so he is re-trained by Master Wong (James Hong) and his niece, Maggie (Maggie Q).

The film becomes a collection of clichés from the past three decades of martial arts films, all retooled as silly jokes that never quite make you laugh out loud. Even as an outlandish spoof, Balls of Fury fails to be as funny as it could have been. Most of the jokes are the not-so-subtle parallels to Enter the Dragon. These references, however, are only funny if you've seen the movie. As luck would have it, I caught it on cable television recently, so it was fresh in my mind. Even so, the parody only works up to a point.

Balls of Fury offers a couple of good performances, including Christopher Walken. Always a favorite of mine, Walken delivers his part with a weird blend of pure professionalism and slightly off-kilter madness. It's just strange to see a underground crime boss complain that he's missing Antiques Roadshow. George Lopez gives a good performance, but only seems to break loose of his stereotyped role when Agent Rodriquez is startled awake and nearly shoots Randy.

The weak link of the film is Dan Fogler. Although he may be known on Broadway for his Tony Award-winning performance in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, he is unknown to movie-going audiences (especially the target audience of this film). I'm not saying that a well-known comedic actor like Jack Black or Will Ferrell could have saved this film. Perhaps nothing could. Yet, a little Jack Black might have helped.