Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, the co-creators of Reno 911! and the people behind this past February’s Reno 911! movie, are successful, in-demand Hollywood screenwriters of such lowest-common-denominator fare as Taxi, Night at the Museum and The Pacifier. Those high-profile paycheck-cashing gigs allow them the freedom to pursue more idiosyncratic projects, often with fellow alums of the influential comedy troupe The State. Balls of Fury, written by Garant and Lennon and directed by Garant, looks like it should follow in that tradition, with a goofy premise and appearances by much of the supporting cast of the Reno 911! movie.
It turns out to be almost as flimsy and poorly structured as one of the duo’s Hollywood duds, though, if somewhat funnier. The plot is straight out of an ’80s Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, only instead of a secret martial-arts competition (as in Bloodsport or Kickboxer), it focuses on a mysterious ping-pong tournament, led by nefarious underworld figure Master Feng (Walken, in full-on self-parody mode). Years ago, Feng killed the father of former ping-pong champion Randy Daytona (Fogler), and now Randy has teamed up with FBI agent Ernie Rodriguez (Lopez) to infiltrate the tournament and bring down Feng’s criminal empire.
All of this is really just an excuse for lots of jokes that treat ping-pong with the seriousness of an ancient killing art, a gimmick that gets old quickly. Far too much time is spent watching the washed-up Randy retrain himself with the help of a blind master (James Hong) and his hot niece (Maggie Q), and there are long, pointless digressions for unfunny gay jokes and rivalries that never pan out. The movie is packed with clever cameos from the likes of David Koechner and Patton Oswalt, but the funniest isolated bits don’t add up to a satisfying whole. By the end, Garant and Lennon lose even the pretense of coherence, and what could have been a surreal and, yes, ballsy satire turns out to be just another dumb, lowbrow comedy.
Balls of Fury
** 1/2
Dan Fogler, Christopher Walken, George Lopez
Directed by Robert Ben Garant
Rated PG-13
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