Director: Peter Farrelly
Writers: Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick
Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Paul Walter Hauser, Sacha Baron Cohen
Synopsis: In this raunchy, over-the-top comedy, marketing executives Brad and Elijah go “balls out” and pitch a bold full‑coverage condom sponsorship with the World Cup. After their drunken celebration in Brazil sparks a global scandal, they must outrun furious fans, criminals, and power-hungry officials to salvage their careers and make it home alive
Look, I laughed. A lot. What do you want me to say? Sure, Peter Farrelly’s latest foray into the nether regions of lowbrow humor in Balls Up is stupid, juvenile, and excessively inappropriate. It’s also very funny and is fully cognizant of how preposterous this whole scenario may be. Because of this, Farrelly allows his leads to actually have fun being in one ridiculously over-the-top situation after another, where private parts and bodily fluids are at the heart of the movie’s humor.
I’m also the first one to say that these types of jokes can sustain themselves for a bit or two, but not an entire, 104-minute-long feature film. I panned numerous movies where dick (or balls) jokes were the entire movie’s thesis, because they’re always terribly unfunny and get tiresome incredibly fast. Not in Balls Up, even if some jokes have the tendency to overstay their welcome. However, it’s not that big of an issue when the inciting incident that sets the plot in motion is legitimately clever, and Mark Wahlberg gives one of his most playful performances in a very long time.
With this and Shane Black’s Play Dirty, Wahlberg has seemingly found his groove in comedic acting, after a stint of horrendous direct-to-streaming efforts that I’ve all seen and completely forgotten (they all started to resemble one another after a while). You can tell he’s having a blast being a total goofball with Paul Walter Hauser, the complete polar opposite of Marky Mark’s personality. Together, they’re a match made in heaven as marketing executives Brad (Wahlberg) and Elijah (Paul Walter Hauser), who are attempting to pitch a condom to influential Brazilian figures timed to the country’s World Cup.
The pitch fails, but the two still get invited to the World Cup final when the occasion arrives. It’s Brazil versus Argentina. This is more than “just a game” to anyone who’s fully invested in football. It’s a way of life, and a match that could potentially topple one nation if a specific team wins. While I’ll attempt to keep plot details to a minimum, let’s just say that an altercation occurs between Brad and Elijah during a decisive moment in the game, which causes Argentina to gain the upper hand and win the whole thing.
Naturally, anyone invested in football wants to kill Brad and Elijah for having prevented Brazil from scoring a goal that could’ve shifted the final’s direction. And that’s exactly what happens. Throughout the runtime, the duo will have to make it out of the country alive, as they’re being hunted by ordinary civilians (with too much time on their hands to be this invested in football, I think), underground criminal figures, and even high-level politicians with direct ties to the army. In short, they’re screwed – unless they make allies, and fast.
As they meet a revolving door of colorful characters (played by Benjamin Bratt, Sacha Baron Cohen, Eva de Dominici, Eric André, and Daniela Melchior), the two will quickly realize that no one remotely cares about helping them, but only their self-serving interests. It results in a bevy of highly memorable set pieces, even if I can’t say everyone will ultimately like this. The thing is, stupid humor, when done right, can be the funniest thing ever. To do this, a filmmaker must understand that the entire movie is stupid and that the actors should play their roles knowing what they’re doing is completely idiotic.
In that regard, Farrelly more than succeeds in staging pure stupidity on screen and allowing Wahlberg and Walter Hauser room to play. Both don’t phone it in, and they seem to have a hell of a time acting like complete idiots the entire time. Never has part of the duo that brought Dumb & Dumber to life felt so vindicated in popularizing a new form of raunchy comedies, where acting like a buffoon is rewarded and will make you laugh, provided you’re not too cynical about the world. Each joke being set up by characters has an often hilarious payoff, and even if it’s too childish, it doesn’t matter. You can’t help but laugh at them.
Sometimes, that’s all we need. A good dose of laughter to alleviate the woes of the world. Seeing Wahlberg loosen himself up a bit feels refreshing, because Farrelly knows he can be good if he just gives a damn for a second. Twice now, he’s collaborated with directors who know he’s better than using films to promote his Municipal brand and just have fun. You wouldn’t believe how loudly I laughed during the scene where Brad faces Vampire fish, or when both Brad and Elijah are forced to swallow their own condoms whole, filled with cocaine. Yeah, it’s ridiculous. But who cares?
Will this critic’s cinephile card be revoked for recommending Balls Up and not Project Hail Mary? Maybe, but the thing is, I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Even if I didn’t want to in scenes that are clearly meant to provoke and make you feel awkward, I laughed. There’s nothing more joyful and uniting about the power of laughter, because it’s an intrinsic part of our own humanity and a sign that I (not yet, at least) haven’t been desensitized to human feeling. If Peter Farrelly wanted to remind me that I still have emotions, he’s more than succeeded. However, one hopes his next film, an Oscar-bait biopic on the making of John G. Avildsen’s Rocky won’t be filled with that same humor. You gotta know when to make ‘em laugh, and when to make all of us think. Balls Up won’t make you do the latter, but it will certainly make you laugh.
If this isn’t what cinema is made for, what is?
