The latest Peter Farrelly of The Farrelly Bros. comedy is a tale of condoms, testicular protection, the South American cocaine trade, the World Cup and two doofuses who find one “fine mess” after another to get themselves into.
“Balls Up” is a buddy picture that leans hard into vulgar laughs and finds even them hard to come by. Shockingly.
I was impressed by Mark Wahlberg‘s commitment and energy level in a movie where over-acting is demanded by the lumbering, nearly lifeless script. Take away the usual Farrelly shocks — penises, alligator corpse desecration and Molly Shannon showering the soundtrack with F-bombs — and there’s a whole not of nothing funny or even all that interesting going on in this never-quite-promising farce that gets worse the longer it goes on.
Buddy comedy pro Wahlberg is paired with slow and slow-talking sight-gaggy Paul Walter Hauser of “I, Tonya” and “BlackKlansman” and that just doesn’t pay or play.
Hauser plays Elijah, a pedantic, humor-impaired and risk-averse designer at a condom company that hopes to become the official prophylactic of the (fictional) World Cup 2025, slated for Brazil.
Wahlberg’ is ace salesman Brad, who might save Royal Blue Condom Company’s “Testicle Sentinel” innovation and its very existence by closing this deal.
Watching Elijah’s pained and off-color/over-sharing”presentation” of this innovation to the corporate higher ups (Molly Shannon is CEO) makes that seem like its own Project Hail Mary. Even the introduction of a blue dildo vibrator doesn’t help.
But Brad aces his “Let us cup you and yours at the next World Cup” pitch to Brazilian honcho Santos (Benjamin Bratt, a hoot) and his South American underlings. If only they’d stopped there, and not talked “nine years sober” Santos into celebratory drinks at the sort of vast, production-designed nightclub you only see in the movies.
The cheap shots and mockery of Alcoholics Anonymous are vintage Farrelly (“Dumb and Dumber,” “Kingpin”). Peter and his brother Bobby invented “Oh no they DIDN’T” sacred-cow mockery.
“Joo know what aye haven’tried een a long time,” Bratt purrs?
“Skee-ball,” Brad guesses?
“CRACK!”
But the evening and the movie slip into a coma after that early transgressive buzz as our “heroes” get fired and the company closes, only to have uncanceled tickets arrive months later for the condom designer and “Brad from Sales,” who get to fly down to see Brazil battle Argentina for the title.
There’s an “incident.” The game is compromised and a whole country wants the blood of “os estupidos,” as they call the Ugly Americans.
Screenwriters Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese cut and paste together a story of “You’re free to go…be lynched by Brazilians” official corruption, a more sympathetic and comically-accented drug lord played by Sacha Baron Cohen who has something else in mind for those condoms these two are responsible for, and a visit to Amazonia, where cultish environmentalists do ayuhuasca and protect native species by killing anybody they think is a poacher.
Chelsy Crisp and Eric André try to breathe life into those latter scenes. And a little of S.B. Cohen goes a long way.
Depending on your sense of humor and chemically altered state, there might be half a dozen chuckles in “Balls Up” — less if you’re sober.
The movie and time itself slows to a crawl through the excruciatingly unamusing latter acts. And just when you think it can’t fall more completely to pieces, here comes a finale that further lowers the bar.
Farrelly’s movie, like his comic shock-shtick, gets old in a hurry.
Rating: R, violence, nudity, drug content and profanity
Cast: Mark Walhberg, Paul Walter Hauser, Molly Shannon, Daniela Melchior, Eva de Dominic, Chelsey Crisp, Eric André, Sacha Baron Cohen and Benjamin Bratt.
Credits: Directed by Peter Farrelly, scripted by Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese. An MGM release on Amazon Prime
Running time: 1:45
