Netflix Movie Review: Balls of Fury

This week’s Neflix Movie Friday Review comes courtesy of Balls of Fury. A relatively cliché movie from beginning to end, there still are some very good sequences that, while are visible a mile away, offer some good laughs. Plus, I feel like I’ve been reviewing shit movies the past few weeks so I decided to at least watch something I could get a few laughs out of. Plus Christopher Walken. 

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Balls of Fury stars Dan Fogler as Randy Daytona, Christopher Walken as Feng, George Lopez as FBI Agent Rodriguez. After a humiliating table tennis play as a child, Randy Daytona’s life has been a downward spiral as he tries to find an outlet for his talent of the sport. FBI Agent Rodriguez brings on Randy in an undercover operation to infiltrate Feng’s secret table tennis tournament with an ulterior motive of locating Feng’s weapons stash.

The plot of this film could not be more transparent. In an attempt to make up for lost years of table tennis, they attempt to train him with Master Wong, played by James Hong, who also happens to be blind. They don’t really hide the fact that he’s blind by blatantly point it out as much as possible. Tacked on is what could only be described as an incredibly thin and predicable love interest Maggie, played by Maggie Q. What really makes it worst is that she gets removed from the film half way in and then only brought back in the last five minutes of the film to show that yea, she’s moderately attractive and attracted to Randy. This film is ripe with cliché after cliché, which makes whatever humor completely dry. Although it is always refreshing to see Christopher Walken do what he does best; him being himself in all his movies.

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I have to give some mad props to the accuracy and attention to detail as far as the Cantonese in the film. When subtitles are available for the “Gwai Lo” audience, the Cantonese is very accurately translated. My only issue is that there were too many times that the language would switch from Cantonese, to Mandarin, and then at one point Japanese.

​The numerous cameos is a big draw for me for the film. You have major actors such as Christopher Walken as mentioned above, Terry Crews, and Robert Patrick, along with some smaller actors such as Patton Oswalt (Dollhouse), and Jim Rash (Community). Lets face it, the real reason why you want to watch this film is because of Christopher Walken.
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Overall this is an exceedingly predictable movie with jokes and humor that don’t seem to hit right. It’s like being at a stand up comedy session where the audience doesn’t laugh at the jokes but only laughs at the times when the host doesn’t want to make a joke. Filled with weird awkward jokes.

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Netflix Predicted Rating: 3/5 
My Rating : 3/5