Movie Review: Balls of Fury

Balls of Fury (2007) 

Directed by Robert Ben Garant

Written by Thomas Lennon, Robert Ben Garant

Starring Dan Fogler, Christopher Walken, George Lopez, Maggie Q, Robert Patrick

Release Date August 29th, 2007

Published August 30th, 2007

Who is Dan Fogler? That is the question many who see the movie Balls of Fury will ask. Of course, most won't see Balls of Fury because they don't know who Dan Fogler is. Quite a conundrum. Nevertheless, Fogler is an acclaimed actor. He won a Tony award, Broadway's highest honor, for his work in the musical "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee ''.How one goes from Broadway star to the star of a movie about ping pong is one of those curious quirks of Hollywood. Something linked Fogler to the guys from Reno 911, Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, and thus they came to cast Fogler in their latest unfunny comedy Balls of Fury.

Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon are two of the creators of the often quite funny cops spoof Reno 911. However, their film work has been utterly atrocious. I've rundown the litany of their sins more than a few times and here they are again. The Pacifier, Taxi, Reno 911 Miami and Herbie Fully Loaded. Blech! Balls of Fury is as inept and misguided as any of those features.

The story begins at the 1988 olympics. 12 year old Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler) is America's hope for the gold in Ping Pong. Unfortunately, Randy gets beaten badly and embarrasses himself by knocking himself cold and proclaiming he was going to Disney World. Nearly 20 years later Randy is still playing ping pong, as a performer in a low class Vegas casino lunch room populated by the soon to the grave crowd.

There, Randy is approached by an FBI agent, Rodriguez (George Lopez), who explains that Randy is America's best chance to capture a legendary Chinese mafia figure known as Feng (Christopher Walken). Feng, it seems, is a ping pong aficionado and is holding an underground tournament for the best players in the world. Randy must get back in shape and with the help of ping pong guru (James Hong) and his smoking hot daughter Maggie (Maggie Q), prepare to play ping pong to the death.

Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant come from the world of sketch comedy and improv and you can see the influence of that in Balls of Fury. Sudden death ping pong is a good sketch comedy premise. Unfortunately, when stretched to the length of a feature film it wears thin quickly. You can see throughout Balls of Fury a number of unformed ideas that begin with the potential to be funny but peter out as the actors search for the punchline.

Dan Fogler is not a well known actor unless of course you are a fan of Broadway. The comic actor won a Tony Award for his work in "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee". Of course few actors, even one with a Tony on his resume, could make this material work. Fogler's co-stars Maggie Q and George Lopez are only slightly more entertaining than Fogler, each struggling with the bad material and unformed ideas. Then there is poor James Hong. As Fogler's ping pong guru this longtime character actor is repeatedly humiliated in the filmmaker's attempt to find something funny.

The only actor to survive and even grasp this horrible concept is Christopher Walken. The legendary Mr. Walken finds what little funny there is in Balls of Fury by simply doing his own thing. Walken crafts his wacked out bad guy character, commits to every detail and belts it to the back of the room. Walken's seemingly method approach to this bizarre character, an American pretending to be a Chinese gangster, is at times utterly sublime simply for Walken's dedication to playing it straight.

Balls of Fury is a bad movie. Poorly crafted, poorly conceived and stunningly sloppy for a mainstream Hollywood release. Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant have once again failed miserably in attempting to translate their unique brand of sketch and improv comedy to the big screen. And yet, Christoper Walken is so classically Walken-esque, there is almost a reason to subject yourself to this piece of junk. I'm far from willing to recommend Balls of Fury, but fans of Christopher Walken with a lot of time to spare may find something oddly entertaining.

Movie Review Night at the Museum

Night at the Museum (2006) 

Directed by Shawn Levy

Written by Thomas Lennon, Robert Ben Garant 

Starring Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Dick Van Dyke, Steve Coogan, Carla Gugino, Robin Williams 

Release Date December 22nd, 2006 

Published December 21st, 2006 

As movie pedigrees go, Night at the Museum could not have an uglier ancestry. Directed by Shawn Levy, the man behind both The Pink Panther and Cheaper By the Dozen, and written by Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant, who despite being brilliant on TV's Reno 911 have written scripts for cinematic flotsam like Taxi, Let's Go To Prison and The Pacifier. Ugh!

It is a wonder then how they managed to net, for their latest movie Night At the Museum, some all star comedians for an all star cast. Led by Ben Stiller, the cast also includes Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Ricky Gervais and Robin Williams. However, even a cast as brilliant as this cannot overcome the work of the behind the scenes 'talent' at work on Night at the Museum, an aggressively aggravating work of computer generated ridiculousness and family movie clichés.

I must admit, the idea behind Night at the Museum is very clever. At night at the natural history museum in New York the exhibits come to life and wreak havoc thanks to a mummy's curse. It's up to the new night security guard Larry (Ben Stiller) to keep the chaos from spilling out into the streets of New York and keep the exhibits from perishing in the light of day.

Larry is left this task after three longtime night guards, played by legends Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney and Bill Cobbs, are let go. Let's just say they are a little bitter about being let go. They are kind enough to leave Larry an instruction manual but when Larry gets cocky, thinking he knows how to handle this situation, things go from weird to worse.

Larry would not have taken this job but his ex-wife Erica (Kim Raver) threatened to take away his son Nick (Jake Cherry) if he didn't find a steady job and place to live. No points for guessing that Nick will get in on the museum madness. You also get no points for guessing that the pretty museum tour guide, played by Spy Kids star Carla Gugino, will become Larry's love interest.

The best part of Night at the Museum is Robin Williams as President Teddy Roosevelt. Coming to life nightly to ride his horse throughout the museum, Williams' Mr. President is the most helpful of the museum exhibits and of course when it comes to delivering the moral of the story who better than a former President. Of course, Williams can't help but ham it up a little, but you expect that from Robin Williams.

Ben Stiller seems at a loss to keep up with the goofy CGI madness of Night at the Museum. Rushed through the exposition, his character is essentially a deadbeat who nearly loses his kid because he's so lazy. Not exactly a winning character. Once inside the museum, Stiller's Larry vacillates from coward to cocky but mostly just runs around confused and angry.

Director Shawn Levy and writers Garant and Lennon hit all of the typical family movie beats, a lesson learned, bathroom humor and a monkey. They also toss in a couple action movie clichés for good measure including a chase scene involving an ancient stagecoach and a miniature SUV. Trust me, my description reads far more interesting than the actual scene.

With comic talent like Stiller, Williams, Wilson et al, it would seem impossible for the film to completely fail and I guess it doesn't fail completely. Stiller can't help but wring a few laughs out of a character who's only characteristic is frustration. Frustration is Stiller's milieu. Owen Wilson and Steve Coogan have a good banter but their parts are tiny, literally and figuratively.

Ricky Gervais really gets short shrift. Why hire one of England's premiere comic talents for a role that doesn't give him any room to breathe. As the crusty museum curator, Gervais has no jokes in the movie, he is simply in place to punish Stiller's Larry and then disappear. It's as if he was hired just to make the film more profitable in England where having his name on the poster might sell a few tickets.

I honestly wonder if comedians like Ben Stiller and Robin Williams accept parts in movies like Night at the Museum in some kind of Hollywood style community service program. Studio heads put it out there that if stars will work on family movie garbage like Night at the Museum then they will get the chance to work on projects the stars really want to make. Can there be any other explanation as to why talented people make such terrible films, often in this basest of genres?

I cannot deny that at the screening I attended the target audience for Night at the Museum laughed loudly and often. Little children will, sadly, find a lot they enjoy about Night at the Museum which manages to find a number of lowest common denominator moments just for the kids. For my money however, I can't imagine why, with a satisfying, smart and genuinely touching family film in theaters like Charlotte's Web, why anyone would waste money on Night at the Museum.

Is it just that Night at the Museum is louder than Charlotte's Web? I'm just trying to understand.

Movie Review Reno 911 Miami

Reno 911 Miami (2007) 

Directed by Robert Ben Garant

Written by Robert Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon, Kerri Kenney Silver 

Starring Thomas Lennon, Robert Ben Garant, Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Kerri Kenney Silver 

Release Date February 23rd, 2007 

Published February 23rd, 2007 

Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant are the team behind some of the worst screenplays in the past decade. The Pacifier, Taxi, Night at the Museum, Let's Go To Prison amongst others, ugh. The screenplay is simply not their forte. As they demonstrate on Comedy Central's inspired improv series Reno 911, Lennon and Garant's talent lies in spontaneity and invention. In the comic moment they know where to find the joke.

Now, with Reno 911 Miami, Lennon and Garant finally have an example of their talent on the big screen. Now if we can just convince them to stop writing screenplays.

The cops of the Reno police department are incompetent goofs whose days are spent chasing naked meth freaks and shooting at loose chickens. This ragtag bunch has never been a respected group of cops which makes their invitation to the national police convention in Miami something of a surprise. That is until they get to the part where it says every cop in the country is invited.

Hopping a bus to Miami the Reno sheriff's arrive to find they have no reservations and end up at a flea pit motel where... well the less said about what happens in the following scene the better. The following day when our heroes attempt to attend the cops convention they find the building sealed off by homeland security. Every cop in Miami is inside that building leaving only the Reno cops to step in and patrol the streets.

That is the setup of what is, essentially just an extended episode of the TV series. The cops get cool new Miami Sheriffs uniforms, new vehicles to destroy and wholly new ways to demonstrate their incompetence. Directed by Garant with scenarios written by Lennon and fellow cast member Kerri Kenney, Reno 911 Miami is not exactly groundbreaking but it is pretty funny.

Sloughing off the strict rules of cable television the Reno crew indulges their basest instincts. From foul language to nudity to some truly horrifying sexual situations, the Reno crew really indulges in the freedom of the R-rating, something they can't take full advantage of on TV.

The best moments of Reno 911 Miami are the star cameos. Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, comedian Patton Oswalt and a nearly unrecognizable Paul Rudd each are allowed some of the biggest laughs in the film. Rudd especially has a few big moments as a Miami drug lord who randomly kidnaps the Reno cops to warn them not to investigate him, something they had not been doing anyway.

Reno 911 is a funny TV show that really didn't need a theatrical feature. As a feature it's just as funny as an average episode of the TV show only with a little extra on the bathroom humor and the language. The R-rating isn't exactly a plus, often on the TV show the bleeping was as funny as any curse that might be uttered.

Fans of the TV series will be more than satisfied with this feature length version. For the uninitiated, Reno 911 Miami will provide a few big laughs but nothing they couldn't see on Comedy Central 3 or 4 times a week.