BALLS OF FURY - quite depressingly piss-poor

We went to see BALLS OF FURY on the grounds that in our fragile state (the variety of the wine) we couldn't handle anything too cerebral. On the other hand, as we were soon to discover, there's a level of brainlessness that can exert its own special kind of pain on the poor hapless cinema-goer.

BALLS OF FURY is brought to you by the cinematic gurus (sarcasm) behind the altogether dismal RENO 9-11: MIAMI. This time, writer-director Ben Garant and writer-actor Thomas Lennon try to spoof martial arts and under-dog sports movies. Trouble is, this is territory that has been mined with greater success by recent classics such as DODGEBALL or even BLADES OF GLORY. Dan Fogler plays a washed up ping-pong player called Randy Daytona. Daytona is recruited by the FBI to bring down a sinister triad and ping-pong fanatic (Christopher Walken).

The jokes are weak - alternately sexist or racist. The plot is entirely predictable. And I spent most of the movie feeling embarassed for the actors - especially Walken. And as for Aisha Tyler, she loses all credibility as a guest reviewer on Siskel and Ebert given her choice of script.

BALLS OF FURY was released in the US, Singapore, Russia, the Philippines, Ukraine, Iceland, Slovenia, Australia, Kuwait, Greece, Spain earlier this year and is currently playing in the UK. It opens in Argentina on January 17th 2008.

DEATH SENTENCE suffers from bipolar disorder

DEATH SENTENCE was a potentially great movie but suffered from a change of concept half way through. The first half is a well-acted and deeply moving tale of loss. Kevin Bacon and Kelly Preston play a middle-class middle-aged couple who lose their elder son in an unmotivated gang assault. The father decides not to testify against the gang member responsible. Instead, after some procastination, and before the self-disgust and sinister pride, he takes revenge.

I really loved this half of the film. It was told with economy (viz. the opening montage of home videos) and I really liked the washed out look of the film. Kelly Preston and Kevin Bacon acted their grief convincingly and Bacon was especially good at showing the different stages by which an apparently normal guy becomes a vigilante. Best of all, it seemed as through the movie was going to have the balls to fling out the conventional vigilante movie ending with something much darker and realistic.

Of course, that would only have given the flick an eighty minute run-time. So director James "SAW" Wan tacks on a 30 minute coda that is pure video-game mindless shoot-em-up violence. The whole look and tone of the flick changes. Not that this isn't a lot of fun. John Goodman's cameo as the gang leader is Pure Comedy Gold. But it just felt like between the reels we'd been sucked into a COMPLETELY different film.

DEATH SENTENCE is currently on release in the UK and USA. It opens in Germany on September 13th, in the Netherlands on September 27th, in Turkey on October 5th and in Belgium on November 21st 2007.