Comedy: Balls of Fury

Balls of Fury (2007)

At just 12 years old, Randy Daytona was a ping-pong child prodigy on the brink of capturing the gold at the 1988 Olympics when he blows it under the stress, and subsequently loses his father. 19 years later, the FBI catches up with Randy in Reno, where he's just been fired from his table tennis lunch show. In the style of Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon, Randy is asked to attend a "sudden death" ping pong tournament hosted by Feng (Christopher Walken) so the FBI can infiltrate the lair of this criminal mastermind. After training with a blind coach who doesn't normally train Americans, Randy makes it to the tournament, running into a few of his opponents from his past. What follows is what would be expected.

This was written by Robert Ben Garrant and Thomas Lennon (of Reno 911 and the State fame), and directed by Garrant, so I expected much more out of this. New-comer Dan Fogler, who plays the adult Daytona, seems to be the new comedic slacker in the mold of Jack Black or Judah Friedlander. He seems to be the perfect choice for the Def Leppard fanatic role, and made this more entertaining than it would have been with someone else in that role. Also, being a big fan of Garrant and Lennon, their humor certainly comes through in the script, making the move bearable, and Walken was hilarious. So, at best, I have to say...

it was okay