Christopher Walken has balls to appear in trash like Balls of Fury

Rating: 1/10 (31 August 2007)

If hit-to-the-groin jokes are your cup of tea, then look no further than Balls of Fury, the newest comedy from the minds behind Reno 911. Not only are there punches to the groin, kicks to the groin, and paddles to the groin, there are even chopsticks and metal spheres to the groin! If, on the other hand, you're looking for something with a little more comedic value then men being hit in their nether regions, avoid Balls of Fury like the plague.
The plot, which serves no purpose but to string together a multitude of lame jokes, follows Randy Daytona, a 12 year old ping pong prodigy, who is sweeping the ping pong world by storm. Unfortunately he ends up losing an important match, becomes a laughing stock and his father, who was involved in illegal gambling, is murdered.
19 years later, Daytona (played by third rate Jack Black wannabe Dan Fogler) is washed up and performing ping pong tricks at a run down theatre. FBI agent Ernie Rodriguez (George Lopez), who has been assigned to take down Feng (Christopher Walken), a criminal mastermind who runs an underground ping pong tournament, decides to enlist Daytona to help take Feng down. Daytona, besides making a comeback in the ping pong circuit, wants to get his revenge on Feng, who incidentally, was responsible for his father's death. So Daytona and Rodriguez go undercover, infiltrating Feng's annual ping pong tournament, where they...get hit in the balls.
There are two very confounding things about Balls of Fury. The first being how a script so utterly bad was green lit and produced. The movies plot doesn't make a lick of sense and ambles on from one random scene to the next. In one moment, Daytona and a female ping pong master are shown as hating each other...and out of nowhere, a minute later, they are suddenly love interests. It would've been nice for the writers to put a little bit of effort in and at least include something leading up to that. Another scene has Daytona refusing to join Rodriguez in taking down Feng, only to learn that a water park has been built next to his father's tombstone. How does that provide any motivation for Daytona to strive to take Feng down? The answer is it doesn't, as the writers were to busy writing in jokes to develop a good story.
This wouldn't be such a big deal if any of the jokes were actually funny. Sadly, half of the jokes either involve testicles or an old blind man walking into things, or in some instances, a combination of the two. It's not funny unless you're 12 years old (I wouldn't be surprised if the writer actually was). Not only are the jokes unfunny, they've been done hundreds of times before and done much better. When Balls of Fury does manage to include some original jokes, it involves stuff like the aforementioned water park being built next to a tombstone, which sadly enough, is less funny then the blind man falling down a staircase.
The second mind boggling thing about this movie is how they managed to stick Christopher Walken in this film as the villain, Feng. There are a few other relatively known actors in here, but Terry Crews has already been making appearances in terrible movies for a while now (Norbit anybody?) and Maggie Q still hasn't become a house-hold name. But Christopher Walken? Walken is an amazing actor and it's a crime to see him act in crud like this. He's been in a few duds in the past (Envy springs to mind), but he's never sunken to this level before. Walken isn't fading out or losing appeal, in fact he just had a role in the critical and box office hit, Hairspray. How could he read a script that terrible and agree to take on a big role as the villain? The only reasonable answer seems to be that director Ben Garrant blackmailed him into taking it, as I've got to much respect for Walken to believe he'd actually willingly agree to.
Walken manages to get a few laughs, which is an impressive feat in a movie like this, and steals every scene he's in. Despite working with crummy material, he still puts in a decent comedic performance as Feng, far outshining the other actors. Dan Fogler is the least funny leading man since Jimmy Fallon and mugs for the camera every opportunity he gets, imitating Jack Black as best as he can. George Lopez and Maggie Q play their roles completely straight, which doesn't work in a movie so absurd. By the end of the movie, you'll be wishing they axed the main characters and just made a movie about Feng instead.
The tagline for Balls of Fury reads "A Huge Comedy with Tiny Balls". On the contrary, it took a lot of balls to make this movie. It took balls for director Ben Garrant to release the film without Alan Smithee in replace of his name in the credits. It took balls for Christopher Walken to act in this trash and risk losing his credibility as an actor. It took balls for Rogue to screen the film for critics, as if they expected any good reviews. Yep, it took a lot of balls to make this movie. What it didn't take to make the film was any talent. Balls of Fury is a horrid excuse for a film, and if you're looking for a funny movie to see in the theatre, go see Superbad or Hot Rod. Hell, you can even go see Halloween, as a film about a serial killer is bound to be more funny then this trash.