Ping Pong Phooey
'Balls of Fury' scores few points; 'War' can't even put up a fight
By Andy Klein
The weeks immediately before Labor Day share with the first weeks of January the dubious distinction of being Hollywood's dumping ground for "lesser" product - and the use of that ugly word to characterize work within an art form has rarely been so appropriate.
And so we have Balls of Fury, the latest from writer-director Robert Ben Garant and cowriter Thomas Lennon, the Reno 911! team. The one-line pitch for this was undoubtedly "Enter the Dragon but with ping pong." (Not that Enter the Dragon has a lock on this plot: see Mortal Kombat and about a hundred others.) Dan Fogler, looking like a younger, fatter Curtis Armstrong, stars as Randy Daytona, a disgraced Olympian, lowered to working as a sleazy Reno lounge act.
FBI agent Rodriguez (George Lopez) recruits him to help smash the crime organization of the mysterious Feng (Christopher Walken). (Why Rodriguez is FBI, when virtually everything about the character and his mission screams CIA, is never explained.) Randy has two weeks to get back into competitive form, qualify for Feng's latest secretive, illegal ping pong tournament, and uncover evidence to bust the gang. To prepare, he is tutored by blind ping pong master Wong (James Hong) and his niece Maggie (Maggie Q); she is expert in both the game and in martial arts, plus she likes to wander around in teeny shorts and tops, for which a generation of adolescent boys should be thankful.
The narrative of Balls of Fury moves so awkwardly that it suggests a much longer film, subsequently cut down to 90 minutes by a blind editor. Maggie hates Randy in scene after scene, then suddenly she appears to have been his girlfriend for some time; actor David Proval (Mean Streets, The Sopranos) shows up in a still photograph early on, then appears out of nowhere for maybe 30 seconds during the final big action scene. A colleague has suggested that these bizarre gaps might be a parody of the conventions and/or shoddiness of the movies this satirizes, but that seems unnecessarily generous.
Fogler, apparently best known for his stage work, doesn't leave much of an impression, but the film is almost worth seeing for one reason: Walken, who, at this point in his career, just lights up everything he's in, no matter how lame. His fey, bizarre Feng doesn't appear until halfway through the film, but he provides more laughs than everyone else put together. Until his arrival, you can find occasional entertainment, thanks to the contributions of Hong, Lennon (as a vicious German player), and, of course, Maggie Q's costume designer.
Also popping into theaters last week, without advance screening, is War, formerly known as Rogue, a marginally less misleading title. The partner (Terry Chen) of San Francisco FBI agent Crawford (Jason Statham) is murdered by faceless super-assassin Rogue (Jet Li). Three years later, Crawford's obsession with revenge is intensified when Rogue returns, working both sides against the middle in a gang war between Chinese Triads (led by John Lone) and Japanese yakuza (led by Ryo Ishibashi). Mayhem ensues.
Consider War more proof that bad writing and directing can overwhelm any amount of talent elsewhere. Li has been a great action star for two decades, and Statham has proved himself a fine tough-guy hero in the Transporter films and others. Add to the cast list Lone (The Last Emperor), Ishibashi (Audition), Luis Guzmán (Magnolia, The Limey), and Mark Cheng (the male lead in Peking Opera Blues). Nobody expects a great performance from Devon Aoki (as the yakuza boss's daughter), but director Philip G. Atwell must be some kind of negative genius to extract bad performances from the likes of Lone and Guzmán.
The script is full of unbelievably clunky exposition, and the plot leads to a big twist (which is ridiculous but acceptable) and then a second big twist (which irritatingly violates one of the sacred rules of screen narrative and isn't acceptable).
Corey Yuen Kwai is one of the world's great fight choreographers and action film directors (The Transporter, Fong Sai-Yuk, Yes Madam, Savior of the Soul), but even his work here seems substandard - either through lack of enthusiasm or inept editing.
Published: 08/30/2007
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