Mark Wahlberg headlines Balls Up, from Oscar-winning Peter Farrelly. Here’s our review of a new R-rated comedy on Prime. I know people were unhappy about Peter Farrelly’s film Green Book earning him a Best Director Oscar nomination, and the movie itself nabbing Best Picture at the Oscars (with Farrelly picking up a gong for co-writing ... Balls Up review | A new comedy from a double Oscar winner
Mark Wahlberg headlines Balls Up, from Oscar-winning Peter Farrelly. Here’s our review of a new R-rated comedy on Prime.
I know people were unhappy about Peter Farrelly’s film Green Book earning him a Best Director Oscar nomination, and the movie itself nabbing Best Picture at the Oscars (with Farrelly picking up a gong for co-writing the screenplay). Still, I can’t help but feel he’s taken the pushback to his success rather badly. 2022’s The Greatest Beer Run Forever was forgettable, 2024’s Ricky Stanicky I haven’t had the pleasure of seeing.
But Balls Up, a new comedy starring Mark Wahlberg and Paul Walter Hauser, is quite something. And by something, I mean the kind of comedy that Uwe Boll might wince at.
Penned by a pair of fine writers, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Zombieland, Deadpool), Balls Up sees Mark Wahlberg as Brad, who along with Hauser’s Elijah, pitches an official tie-in condom to the 2025 World Cup. Yep, there’s no World Cup in 2025, but the chances of getting an official FIFA endorsement for Balls Up must have been on the slim side, hence the story distances itself from the official tournament.
The condom has a special feature, in that it doesn’t just cover a gentleman’s trouser friend, but also his attached paraphernalia. The equivalent of, say, a Nintendo Switch case, that’s got room for your console, and a copy or two of Mario Party. Given that Balls Up is not a subtle film – not a problem, There’s Something About Mary was hardly subtle, but that worked – you can rest assured that this is demonstrated on screen.
What triggers most of the plot is an incident that subsequently takes place during a crucial match between Brazil and Argentina where, er, a crucial attempt on goal is ‘intercepted’ by one of our hapless heroes. This sparks a major international incident, and a film that started out as pitching condoms for a football tournament escalates into an attempt to get out of Brazil without being lynched.
I think at this point we should take a minute to absorb all of this.
I’m a firm believer that nobody – with precious few exceptions – goes out of their way to make a bad film. I also think it’s important when reviewing films to not make it personal about the filmmakers, and just assess the work. There are very talented human beings involved here, whose work I have previously enjoyed.
Still: Balls Up is one of the worst films I can remember seeing in recent memory. It’s a horrifically bad piece of cinema, that leads to the latter Police Academy films protesting their piss-poor ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.
Fully accepting that comedy is subjective, and others may get more out of this than me, I found myself utterly baffled just how flat the film fell, and how quickly. I’m no comedy snob, as my Blu-ray shelves will happily testify (and I’ve done every one of the American Pie straight-to-DVD spin-offs). But to talk about the movie feels like picking through the rubble of a particularly savage bonfire.
I guess if I had to pinpoint the segment I’d most liked wiped from my entire life history it’s the extended Sacha Baron Cohen cameo, which – I think? – is tied to a bit of political satire. Yet the more fundamental issue is the central duo simply doesn’t work.
Mark Wahlberg has proven in the past he’s an able comedy performer, in particular his terrifically-pitched performance in Instant Family. His work in Ted, too, sparked a huge box office hit. Here, he’s a kind of human comedy vortex, one that absorbs anything that might be vaguely amusing, and turns it into dust. I chuckled at one gag right near the start of the film, but following that, they could make a trilogy of Indiana Jones films about the quest to find a good comedy line delivery from Wahlberg here. It’s career low stuff, sadly.
I’m fascinated too that Wahlberg retrospectively regretted his work in Paul Thomas Anderson’s superb Boogie Nights, citing reasons of his Catholic faith and being a family man. How that tallies with Balls Up I’ve no idea, but I don’t think the Pope is going to be ordering a screening at the Vatican anytime soon. I mean, stranger things and all, but it feels like a bit of a stretch.
The thing is, I can’t understand why people didn’t spot which way this was going.
Peter Farrelly is no slouch. His first three films – Dumb And Dumber, Kingpin, There’s Something About Mary – each have plenty of merit, and riotous laughs. He’s one of those behind the underrated Osmosis Jones. He’s got two Academy Awards on his shelf. How could he not watch this in the editing room and not know? He’s a much better filmmaker than I can ever dare to dream of being. But Balls Up is as bad as you can imagine it to be, and then ten times worse than that on top.
I noted at the start that Balls Up is a Skydance production, and can’t help but feel it’s something of a parting gift before it headed off to take over Paramount. It’s slipping out onto Prime Video, with a review embargo that lifts the same day it comes out.
I now thoroughly expect it to be a massive success, for a sequel to be ordered, and for me to be caught sobbing in the corner, wondering just what I’ve done wrong. In the meantime, Peter Farrelly has a second film out later this year, the original story I Am Rocky. Heaven help us if the standard doesn’t improve. At least at the moment he has the rare opportunity to have directed the best and worst films of the same year…
Balls Up is available now on Prime Video. Good luck.
