NEW Balls Of Fury (DVD)

(To the tune of Great Balls of Fire - Jerry Lee lewis)

You shake your hips as you paddle the ball
So much work hitting balls that small
Your turn to serve, just watch that curve
Goodness gracious, great balls of fury
I watched this film and I thought it was funny
Though if you rent you'll save some money
Your funny bone will creak and groan
Goodness gracious, great balls of fury

This is an irreverent but funny film about extreme table tennis, and I do mean EXTREME, especially when playing in Christopher Walken's domain. Randy Daytona, (Dan Fogler from Good Luck Chuck) plays the unlikely hero, a former Olympian who discovers that it's a small world after all, and who is coerced by the FBI to play undercover ping pong in a sting operation against Walken's character, Feng.

This takes place nineteen years after his last Olympic appearance, and an out of shape Randy goes through some "Karate Kid" moments with his teacher Wong (James Hong), and Wong's niece (played by Maggie Q) before being invited to Feng's place for some ball paddling. The next section pays homage to the Bruce Lee mega movie "Enter the Dragon", before the shocking conclusion.

Packed with low blows, slapstick and full frontal stereotyping of several ethnicities, nationalities and persuasions, this is not a movie for the easily offended, or those who demand realism in a movie. Let me hasten to say that I didn't find it distasteful or vulgar, and that the actors obviously enjoyed themselves hamming it up to the max, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Definitely worth renting for those times when you need some stress free comedy, and don't feel like overloading a brain cell or two.

Amanda Richards

this is not a great movie by any means.but it is a movie that takes
ping pong(or table tennis)to the next level.the spoof level,that is. as
far as i know this is the first spoof that's been made about the
game.there are some chuckles here,but no real big laughs.it's sort of
like "Karate Kid" but with Ping Pong.and obviously done with tongue
firmly planted in cheek.it's fast paced,and has lots of
action.Christopher Walken is the highlight of course,though we have to
wait quite awhile to see him.you won't likely be bored while watching
this flick.but i wouldn't expect anything resembling comedy of the fast
and furious variety.for me,Balls of Fury is a 3/5

For me the reason that "Balls of Fury" works is because it is centered on the simple idea of making a kung-fu movie about ping-pong. Okay, specifically this 2007 comedy is about the world of underground ping-pong, but you get the idea. Consequently, director Robert Ben Garant is able to chart quite a different course than in parody movies where if you have not seen the films they are making fun of then you do not really get the joke. There are certainly pop culture references throughout the film (you can say "cricket," but people of my generation will think "grasshopper" as in "Kung Fu"), but these are clearly homages rather than parodies. Plus, the movie pays as much attention to the ping-pong part of the equation as it does the kung-fu stuff. Besides, "Balls of Fury" has Christopher Walken, an actor whose fractured cadences and idiosyncratic sense of emphasis would make a reading of a random page from the phone book a comic tour de force.

The framework for "Balls of Fury" is your basic sports story of redemption, beginning at the table tennis semi-finals of the 1988 Olympics, where 12-year-old Randy Daytona (Brett DelBuono), the prohibitive favorite, goes down in ignominious defeat (literally). There are a couple of other crosses for Randy to bear, and 19 years later doing table tennis shtick at a casino, Randy (Dan Fogler) is approached by FBI Agent Ernie Rodriguez (George Lopez) to help bring down the arch criminal Feng (Walken). Out of shape for competitive ping-pong, Randy turns to Wong (James Hong), a blind master, whose niece Maggie (Maggie Q) distracts our hero from his mission: to be invited to Feng's Sudden Death Ping Pong Tournament. So we have all of the basic ingredients for this genre: the training process, the distracting romance, and the deadly competition in the final act.

I certainly liked seeing Dan Fogler get a chance to play the lead in a movie off of his success creating the role of William Barfée in "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," which earned him the 2005 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. There is a role in this world for large male comic actors, and hopefully Fogler will get some more opportunities to fill that niche after this one. "Balls of Fury" might not do much for competitive ping pong, under or above ground, but it certainly gives the legacy of Def Leppard a shot in the arm and see people tracking down "Pour Some Sugar On Me" (actually it was the most popular song played by the DJ at the last wedding I attended). I have to round up on this film just for that song alone.