Balls Up: Movie Review

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Paul Walter Hauser, Benjamin Bratt, Sacha Baron Cohen
Director: Peter Farrelly

A film from one half of the duo behind There's Something About Mary and Dumb and Dumber about a condom being launched in the upcoming World Cup doesn't really endow its audience with much hope.

However, in this borderline unfunny piece that salvages only a few laughs from unexpected moments, hope is abandoned within the opening sequence, which sees Paul Walter Hauser's marketing executive Elijah try to pitch a new condom for the upcoming FIFA festivities by unveiling the fact that it covers both the penis as well as the testicles.

As the room watches on as Elijah stumbles and fumbles his pitch to his own company, one of the assembled employees bemoans, "What is happening here?", a sentiment which soon becomes the key mantra for a film that sees a naked Benjamin Bratt swing on a rope while aroused and sees one man being forced to suck out a vampire fish which has gone up another's penis.

Depending on how you read the above sentences will very much lead you to your own conclusions about whether this is a movie for you. For those looking for humour, it is not; for those seeking broad debased laughs that are as scattered as they are scatological, they will be rewarded.

When Brad (Wahlberg) and Elijah (Hauser) score an own goal with their condom pitch, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory during a meeting with Brazilian authorities, they're fired. But having been granted a couple of VIP passes to the World Cup Final, they decide to go anyway.

However, during a last-minute pitch invasion by a drunken Elijah (Hauser's character is unsurprisingly uptight), the entire nation of Brazil turns on them after losing the game to bordering neighbours Argentina. Forced on the run, the "Os Stuipdos", as they're dubbed by media, try to flee the country with their lives.

Farrelly's sense of direction lurches from one absurd moment to the next, with nary a pause in the script for any serious laughs or character development. Having cut his teeth on broader fare, he's reticent to divert from the usual MO - but even this time, the gross-out laughs feel forced, fraught and fairly unfunny. 

While the banter between the bickering Brad and Elijah is brought to life well by Wahlberg and Hauser, the lurching script does too little with their obvious comedic potential and even throws in another Sacha Baron Cohen character that's forgettable. (One of the finer moments of the film sees the pair doing a karaoke version of Gotje and Kimbra's infamous song.)

Ultimately, this is one film that actually leaves you feeling exactly as its title intended - it's a Balls Up from beginning to end.

Balls Up is streaming now on Prime Video.