Midol Girl has seen Ben Garant's Balls (of Fury)!!!

Warning! If you are expecting a short & spicy Balls of Fury review here, click away now. If you have a minute of time to waste (you must, you’re on a movie/comic book website) then get comfy, push your glasses up your nose and assume your favorite mouse scrolling movie geek position. There have been so many comedies in the past few years like this one leaving a bad taste in my mouth that I think I snapped a little when I started to do a write-up on this flick. I cracked my knuckles sat at my computer and after a few twitches and flashbacks of “Balls” words were spewing out of my hands onto the keyboard so fast that by the time I was done, I had written an essay on “what makes a good comedy work to me and why Balls of Fury really was just Balls of Sucky”…err I mean, sucked balls to me. Not mine specifically because I don’t have any (that I know of?) but you get the drift. Sometimes the sheer thought and idea of something ends up being a whole lot better then the end result, it’s the seduction of it all. Remember Christmas time when you got all giddy from the top of your little head down to your long underwear booties in anticipation of what might be under that tree? Deep in your heart you wanted it to be exactly what you asked for. Every child knows the difference between the real Transformer and a bargain basement go-bot. You wanted it to be the real thing as awesome as imagined, but at the exact same time you wanted it to still be a surprise. That’s how I feel about comedy flicks, and why Balls of Fury was such a let down for me. I had so much sugar-rush anticipation for the movie after seeing the trailers, one includes a rock and roll lovin’ dorky fat guy wearing short shorts and a seventies style headband (Dan Fogler) in fight club style warehouse basement playing his paddle like an electric guitar and literally getting his ass handed to him in a Ping-Pong competition by a cheek-pinching cute little girl in pig tails. The internet buzz has so far been saying not much in the way of good reviews, but not much in the way of bad ones either, leading me to have an optimistic outlook. With such a funny tagline “A Huge Comedy With Tiny Balls”, Balls of Fury also has a cast of performers who I would consider to be experts in the field of comedy. It was written by Thomas Lennon & Robert Ben Garant (also directed) who aren’t newbies to this kind of Hollywood film making on any account (Night at the Museum, Reno 911) so I had no reason to doubt their ability to execute their comedic visions. Also, anyone who could dream up a movie that includes Christopher Walken as a Ping-Pong master sporting an out of this world oriental get-up has got to have the ability to make a good comedy right? Wrong. When I finished watching the full-screening of Balls of Fury I felt as disappointed and pissed off as a six year opening a present Christmas morning containing 2 single pairs of wool socks which were expected to be to be Astroboy style rocket boots. If there wasn’t the threat of being thrown into the back of a paddy-wagon and wheeled to a phsych ward for evaluations that would interfere with my writing schedule I would have temper tantrumed my ripped-off little self all over the movie theatre. The overgrown kid in me was so sure Balls of Fury would be awesome because It had what I thought were all the right ingredients to make a not only good but a great comedy. It’s easy to think that funny scripts and funny actors equate good comedy, couple that assumption with some flashy packaging boasting a hilarious premise, crazy antics and mind-blowing ping-pong slapstick and a film studio’s guaranteed to fill theatre seats with more then a few asses wanting a chuckle. But their bottom line isn’t whether or not you laugh; it’s whether or not you’ll be holding the ticket stubs as they laugh themselves all the way to the bank. I can’t tell you how tired I am of gimmicky empty Hollywood pantomimes that call themselves comedies. There’s sound reason I pick on comedies that fail more then any of the other trillion box office disasters out there, because when a comedy flick bombs it REALLY bombs. No matter how funny the idea of Balls of Fury was at the drawing board, it isn’t exempt from the harsh truth of this hard to execute wily genre. Low budget B movies or late 80’s/early 90’s horror films such as Child’s Play or Pet Cemetery had the benefit of being so bad they were good. Even last summer’s action thriller “Snakes on a Plane” profited from this advantage. Poorly made Kun-Fu classics have been known to be homaged by greats such as Quentin Tarantino, and therefore have survived the test of time. If a documentary is taboo, provocative or eye-opening enough we easily discount any technical flaws that don’t interfere with the message. Thin storylines and poorly delivered dialog are easily overlooked in action films. Audiences are too bloody mesmerized by the spectacle of battling robots, exploding semi-trailers and half naked women to wonder where the plot’s at. Proof is in the pudding if you look at all the crappy action movies out there that continue dominate the box office year after year. Lame-ass dramatic films can be easily defended if the story has substance. We can just blame the cast for “phoning in” their amateur performances and focus on subject matter. But a comedy, now that’s a genre film that’s hard to love if it isn’t done just exactly right. It’s hard to sit there and watch a film that is supposed to make you laugh, not laugh then find something redeeming. We generally don’t say to ourselves; “It’s really too bad there was no story, all the physical gags were so poorly executed that I didn’t laugh and the jokes all bombed to hell. But the cinematography, now that was amazing! ” You see for me, a well-done comedy really hinges on not only the overall story concept (including the script) and the performances but the heart behind the whole production. Because in my opinion that’s where laughter comes from, the heart. A good team of film makers can have a heart to heart with you by the way they tell their story and connect you to the characters. A simple diner scene between two ordinary guys has the potential to strike a cord deeper in your core then any crazy costume or wacky physical antic in a film. Most of the films that seem to make people bust a gut are told simply in ordinary settings. The Big Lebowski is bursting at the seams with one-liners that had me in stitches. You can really feel the Coen brother’s understanding of the heart of the stories they tell. Their character’s complexities and motivations ooze out of every line of dialog making the performances so genuine you can connect on a deep enough level to laugh. Jeff Bridges got every single part of his being completely into the Dude. Dialog that may have sounded clunky on paper got delivered in such an off the cuff manner we could laugh as-if it was a best friend busting out a hilarious one-liner in a parking lot. Napoleon Dynamite as simplistic and over-quoted as it was, was made out of heart and soul. You can tell these imaginary characters had been inside jokes for a long time, and were dreamed up by Jered and Jerusha Hess long before they materialized on the festival screen as Napoleon and Pedro at Sundance. The humor in Planes Trains and Automobiles stems from our understanding of what makes each opposing character tick and as the inner workings of their heart’s deepest desire, and wounds are revealed, our sympathy for the characters struggles sucks us deep enough into the story to have an empathetic laugh. Even in cartoons it’s the cathartic writing and heartfelt drawings behind them that makes them achieve laughter. The Simpsons and South Park, probably the most successful from TV to Big screen animated adaptations of all time harbor the restless opinionated voices of the storytellers underneath the quirky characters and outrageous dialog. I could spend hours discussing brilliant comedy moments in film history and the stories would vary as extreme as black is different from white, or dogs are different from cats but the ones in my opinion that have had the most success have been ones that have somehow touched the most vital part of your being, even if only for a second and caused a knee jerk laugh reaction. Balls of Fury had all the right comedy intentions, if there was a “formula” for what a comedic masterpiece should contain this movie had all the ingredients. A hysterical premise, super funny physical set ups and gags and a roster of full of outrageous clown-like characters but just as the Tin Man in the wizard of Oz lacked the organ to feel glee, Balls of Fury lacked the heart to make me laugh. -Midol Girl