FilmEdge.net EXCLUSIVE BREAKING NEWS FROM COMIC CON |
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WORLD PREMIERE SNEAK PREVIEW OF THE UPCOMING COMEDY 
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During today's Rogue Pictures/Focus Films discussion panel, director Robert Ben Garant along with stars Dan Fogler and Tom Lennon invited the audience to a premiere preview screening of BALLS OF FURY, arranged exclusively for Comic Con guests! The upcoming comedy doesn't open in theaters until August 31st, but FilmEdge brings you this exclusive breaking news review direct from the private screening. Moviegoers who saw the BALLS OF FURY trailer when it first appeared in front of Edgar Wright's HOT FUZZ were likely caught off comedic guard by this bizarre and laugh-filled preview of a tale which blends kung fu action in the style of ENTER THE DRAGON with the improbable world of underground, illegal table tennis. You read that right: a martial arts tournament to the death in ping pong. Tonight's exclusive preview screening delivers every laugh found in that trailer from spring and serves up a seemingly endless volley of more. Above all, BALLS OF FURY succeeds because it knows exactly the film it's supposed to be, and wants to be, and asks the audience to expect nothing more. That rule established, the film refuses to ever take itself too seriously: the plot is as light and plastic as a ping pong ball, but the creators and actors serve it up with power and audacity -- just like the hero of the film, Randy Daytona.
Since BALLS OF FURY doesn't boast an expansive breadth of plot, I won't spoil it for readers here; suffice it to say, low-rent lounge act Randy Daytona gets a chance to resurrect his dismal life thanks to an FBI Agent Rodriguez (George Lopez) and a blind ping pong mentor Master Wong (James Hong). Exploiting Daytona's game skills to infiltrate the underworld lair of an arms dealer and pong-devotee Mr. Feng (Christopher Walken), the trio plus Wong's paddle-savvy niece Maggie (Maggie Q) train Daytona to compete in Feng's illegal secret tournament.
Upon seeing the trailer months ago, the bizarre sight of Christopher Walken in his Asian-style glamour garb, lording over an underground ping pong battle, was enough to make me follow this film to release. Now seeing the final product, Walken lives up to Feng's comic potential in his trademarked eccentric style, making the villain a quirky cross between a ruthless villain and a pansy-fied clothes horse who looks like he "dresses out of Elton John's garage sale." On occasion the script hands him some wooden lines which stand up neither to Walken's ability nor the character's potential, but he commits to his role with his own unique flavor of gusto. As Daytona, Dan Fogler may be much less known to audiences, but he carries the film adeptly with his shaggy appearance and slovenly-yet-charming demeanor. His comedic timing is spot-on, his delivery often unexpected as he repeatedly makes less obvious, more entertaining choices in scripted and improvised moments. Tom Lennon echoes the same dynamic in his role, though for surprisingly less time on-screen than expected since Wolfs and Daytona stand as perennial foils for each other. The talented and always enjoyable James Hong threatens to steal nearly every scene he's in, all the while deflating with self-deprication what would be a mindless cliché in the hands of a less talented actor. Maggie Q is both alluring and funny without trying too hard to be either in a modest but winning stretch for the actress, while George Lopez turns in a workable performance in the film's most underwritten part. Overall, the film earned many laughs and moments of applause from the Comic Con audience primed to see it after today's panel, though I'd forecast that any audience would laugh with just the same volume. Garant's direction echoes the spirit of the story: not truly ambitious but also never shirking away from its intentions to flat-out get laughs then move on to Daytona's next clumsily encountered obstacle. Case in point, the many ping pong tournament scenes -- most of which the cast actually played on-set with only a few shots created with CGI -- which put a laughable spin (in the best sense) on kung fu action and revenge melodrama. Look forward to BALLS OF FURY at the end of August, and you'll believe a scroungy lounge act on the dinner theater circuit can rise to heights of a feared ping pong legend. The clever but sparingly used freeze-action spinning camera 'wire fu' from THE MATRIX elevates this seemingly silly table sport to unsuspected comedic heights in its own bemusing fashion. BALLS OF FURY is an unexpected delight which flings rapid-fire laughs across a tiny net, but hits the mark often regardless of its modest scale thanks to its utterly committed cast and director, who team up to create a ping pong epic just crazy enough to score. RATING: 3 1/2 STARS
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In this lead role, frizzy-haired and full-waisted Dan Fogler plays Daytona broadly when required (count his many on-screen groin injuries), but also injects just enough individual personality into his performance to keep this down-and-out pong prodigy from being a one-note joke. Randy Daytona is no comedic symphony either, but therein lies the main point: he's a silly character in an absurdly silly world, but a world whose inhabitants all live in the same delusion that deadly table tennis tournaments are not just a fact of life, but a way of life.
