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| Balls of Fury * |
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| Written by Ivan Radford |
| Wednesday, 26 December 2007 00:00 |
 Director: Robert Ben GarantThis film really wants to be Dodgeball, that modern king of sports comedy. It really isn’t. The title even sounds like a rip-off from Blades of Glory. But what could have been a marginally funny concept – FBI recruits former ping-pong prodigy Randy Daytona (Fogler) to infiltrate the world of arch bad person Feng (Walken) – makes for an incredibly pathetic film. Winning matches and earning an invite to the formidable world tournament at Feng’s palace, Randy receives tutelage from legendary master Wong (Hong). He’s blind. How hilarious. Oh, and he happens to have been Feng’s old tutor. How original. Wong’s daughter, Maggie (Q), is a female in a man’s world. Surrounded by patriarchal systems and the oppressive force of the man-made paddle, she struggles to fight for independence by being really, really good at hitting small plastic balls back and forth across tables. Oh please. Fusing together the worlds of Enter the Dragon and table tennis, the writers probably thought they were being clever. They weren’t. Instead, they succeed in dragging down Bruce Lee to the level of racial stereotypes, jokes about blind people, and the world’s most trite attempt at farcical romance. Even the addition of Christopher Walken to the cast offers no bonus whatsoever – these quirky, unfunny characters have run amok in his CV, trampling all over films such as The Deer Hunter and True Romance. Someone should hit him with a cowbell and bring him to his senses. Never one to be kept down, director Garant swoops back and forth through the deluge of crap, jazzing up the sport with all the energy he can muster. In all fairness, it does make you want to play ping-pong again. Or, to give it its proper name: 'table tennis'. Still, credit to the whole film-making team: crude and goofy humour done well can be entertaining, but to fail at being intentionally awful? That takes some talent. VERDICT Half-way through the dull climax, Walken turns to the camera: “Hurry up, we’re missing Antiques Roadshow". An apt comment on an abysmal film. |
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