Balls Up
by George Wolf
Is it funny to see Mark Wahlberg and Paul Walter Hauser bust out a lightly choreographed karaoke version of Goyte’s “Someone That I Used to Know?”
It is. But are there enough solid laughs in the rest of the film to make Balls Up a thumbs up?
Not quite.
Wahlberg is Brad from sales, and Hauser is Elijah from design, both reporting to boss lady Burgess (welcome delight Molly Shannon) at the Regal Blue condom company.
Elijah has designed a revolutionary condom that extends far enough to wrap the testicles, and Brad just landed the pitch to make “Balls Up” the official condom of the 2025 World Cup in Brazil!
“Raw Dog? Nah Dawg!”
The..ahem… head of the World Cup committee (Benjamin Bratt) is impressed enough to set the guys up with VIP treatment at the tournament. But things go so wrong so fast that Brad and Elijah become branded as “The Stupids,” two American villains on the run from a drug cartel kingpin (Sacha Baron Cohen) and any number of Brazilians who’d love to see them dead.
Speaking of drugs, this entire premise sounds like something two guys thought was freaking hilarious while they were high.
I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know writers Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese have scripted funnier movies. Like Zombieland, or Deadpool, or Deadpool & Wolverine. In comparison this one feels like something that could have been abandoned when they sobered up.
Hauser has the dim-witted schlub act down cold, but as talented as he is, he’s not enough of a comic presence to offset Wahlberg’s struggles with timing and delivery. The Other Guys worked because Wahlberg’s contrast with the effortlessly funny Will Ferrell was instantly engaging. This pairing is constantly in search of real chemistry, and director Peter Farrelly seems helpless to uncover it.
Farrelly has certainly had success with below-the-belt comedy (Kingpin, Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary), but Balls Up becomes just the latest streaming effort to string together inane antics and hope for the best.
This one just gets worse as it is goes, and after an hour and forty minutes of unfunny, you give up that hope.
