If there is a single
thing that Balls of Fury does extremely well, it’s that the film proves
that good ideas for movies do not necessarily translate into good movies
themselves. The trailer for Balls of Fury showed that the flick
had promise: ridiculous table-tennis matches, Christopher Walken acting
as outrageously as his muscles could muster, instances in which the term
“sudden death” literally meant sudden death. But in the feature,
all of these clever moments never amount to comedy of greater weight;
they merely exist as fragments that could’ve been part of a decent
movie. In essence, director Bob Odenkirk and screenwriters Thomas Lennon
and Ben Garant never bother to realize that corny lines and goofy
characters only prove truly amusing when they are supported by a
humorous background story. Balls of Fury certainly lacks any kind
of comedic meat, existing for the fruitlessly unfunny purpose of being
random. Not even Walken himself can save the floundering material; due
to the absence of a personality behind his character, the actor is left
to sit on the sidelines and play the same stereotype that he has in
countless other bad films. Only during the creatively-staged final
ping-pong match did I feel as though Balls of Fury was coming
into its own and, by that time, it was far too late for the picture to
redeem itself. Avoid this embarrassment and its insipid antics at all
costs.
How unfortunate that
The Brothers Solomon, an affable comedy about two brothers trying to
make a baby (not together, of course) despite the fact that they are
totally unprepared to be parents, has been released on the same day that
the story of a Cincinnati woman killing her infant by leaving it in a
hot car has broken. I don’t mean to make light of such a serious issue
by comparing it to such a silly film; in fact, I believe that it is
disgraceful that the woman isn’t going to be prosecuted for her evil
doing. However, it should be noted that the viewer’s knowledge of the
occurrence makes The Brothers Solomon seem far less humorous than
it likely would’ve been a week ago. During a scene in which stars Will
Forte and Will Arnett each prepare for fatherhood by catching baby-dolls
as the other drops them from stories above, the whole experience has an
eerie quality about it. What might’ve come across as amusing when The
Brothers Solomon was being filmed now just serves as a reminder of
all the idiotic, unfit parents that exist in the world.
That all being said,
The Brothers Solomon wouldn’t be a comedy worth writing home about
even if it didn’t bear the aforementioned, strange topicality. A great
many passages in the film remain unaffected by the recent events and
nonetheless prove only intermittently funny. For Forte and Arnett,
The Brothers Solomon represents only a mild (albeit raunchier)
step-up from their regular shtick seen every weekend on “Saturday Night
Live”. Much like recent episodes of that program, the movie was clearly
made with pleasant intentions, but never achieves a memorable level of
laugh-out-loud hilarity. In three or four months, The Brothers
Solomon will make for a perfectly acceptable rental. Until then,
moviegoers’ time is better spent watching more-inspired material.
