Issue date: 9/13/07 Section: The Scene

Media Credit: Rogue Pictures Dan Fogler, who plays Randy in Balls of Fury, may be the next Jack Black or Will Ferrell.

"Ping-Pong! Or as the Chinese say, Ping-Pongs" describes the type of comedy in the film Balls of Fury, directed and written by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon (co-writer).

This film is rated PG-13 for crude and sex-related humor and language.

There are plenty of weird people playing ping-pong like a pair of Siamese twins, a guys using his paddle as a samurai sword, a man crushing a ping pong ball, and a little girl who is supposed to be very good.

Dan Fogler plays Randy Daytona, a chubby, long-maned ping-pong has-been who was a former phenomenon in the game. After losing a game in his younger days, he was disgraced and his father was killed as a result.

Years later, when FBI Agent Rodriguez (George Lopez) recruits him for a secret mission, Randy needs to get back into the sport in order to find his father's killer.
Randy had to compete in an underground tournament hosted by one of the FBI's most-wanted men, Feng, played by Christopher Walken.

Randy is out of shape and hasn't played ping-pong sense that dreadful day he lost, so he must receive training by a blind ping-pong sage, Wong (James Hong) and acquire the training expertise of Wong's talented and sexy niece Maggie (Maggie Q).

After Randy's training, he must enter and win Feng's underground tournament with plenty of abnormal top-notch ping-pong players and avenge his father's death.

The story for this film kind of resembles that of karate kid with an old man who eventually helps the main character become a champion, but in this case the old man is blind and loves prostitutes.

There are plenty of crazy antics in this movie to keep you entertained at first.

The filmmakers did a good job with the 3-D effects on the blindingly fast, riotous ping-pong action scenes. It is obvious that just about all of the actors can't play ping-pong that well in real life, but this movie has you believing that they can.

It is worthy to note that Fogler has three movies coming out this year and next year as well.

With his ability to become a household name, one may ask the question, where did he come from so fast?

It is seems to be a trend more recently to have the hero as a fat guy who doesn't groom himself, diet, or wear nice clothes.

You have to kind of dumb yourself down a bit to really to enjoy a movie like this.

There are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments about halfway through the film, but it is sad that it just doesn't have enough to carry itself throughout the entire film.

After about the first half, the comedy pretty much gets old and dies.

It's just depressing that you expect a movie like this to be as good as Dodgeball, but your expectations are just not fully satisfied.

As good as the preview may have made the movie seem, I wouldn't recommend watching it in theaters.

You are better off just waiting for it to come out on DVD.

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