Did Peter Farrelly pull a fast one on us with his funny, poignant Best Picture winner, Green Book? Because he’s been on a steady downslide ever since, reverting to the kind of moronic, one-joke comedies that he used to make with his brother for years. It’s gotten worse since he made the move to streaming, as The Greatest Beer Run Ever and Ricky Stanicky set an extremely low bar. Somehow, Farrelly has managed to limbo underneath it with Balls Up, a lowbrow condom comedy that shoots its wad early and never recovers.
Penned by the usually reliable duo of Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, known for writing the Deadpool movies, Zombieland, and other hits, Balls Up is so bad it might’ve been a screenplay that someone found stuck in the back of a desk and dusted off. The film gets off to a promising start, though. Paul Walter Hauser plays Elijah, who is presenting a revolutionary idea for a condom that covers not only the shaft, but the balls, as well. The plan is for this new prophylactic to win the struggling company the coveted World Cup account, because apparently more condoms get used during the futbol playoffs than for any other sport. Elijah’s a good guy but kind of a dorky stiff, so his colleague Brad, played by Mark Wahlberg, is brought in to sell the idea to Brazil. Somehow, the plan works.
Balls Up has only two real highlights, and one comes early as Benjamin Bratt, playing Senhor Santos, the man who awarded the lucrative World Cup contract, goes on a hilarious alcohol and drug-fueled bender in which he makes prominent use of the condoms. Not only is Santos fired, but the contract is terminated. The company is left in ruins, but Elijah and Brad still got VIP tickets to the World Cup, only to get drunk and cost Brazil to lose the match. Now, the entire country wants their heads, and they have to flee in hopes of escaping with their lives.
It’s a jumbled, disconnected mess, and Hauser and Wahlberg can’t do anything to stop it. They are basically passengers in the next great sequence, with Sacha Baron Cohen playing a Tony Montana-esque drug dealer who kidnaps the duo and forces them to stay in his mansion. Why? Um, it’s not really clear, and you just sorta go with it because Cohen is the only thing keeping Balls Up afloat with his ridiculous accent, hilarious death threats, and squad of buffoonish henchmen who don’t say much but they know a Jefferson Starship tune when they hear it.
Unrolling like a series of random skits smashed together, we eventually find Elijah and Brad stranded in the jungle, facing down a coke-snorting alligator, having their penises attacked by killer fish, and ending up in a commune run by violent anti-poaching hippies. None of it makes sense, and maybe the chaos is meant to be the point but it never coalesces into anything remotely funny. The sad part is there’s such a missed opportunity here, too, because we all know that fans all around the world take soccer extremely seriously. It’s amusing to see how the Brazilians overreact to the loss with murderous outrage, while Elijah constantly reminds them that it’s “just a game.” Of course, it’s more than that to them, and non-fans, specifically Americans, will never understand it. Balls Up could’ve done a lot more to poke fun at these cultural differences but it just misses the mark.
Meanwhile, we’re expected to believe that Elijah and Brad are evolving into better people during all of this craziness, but it never feels genuine. The supporting cast is pretty lousy, too, with Molly Shannon and Daniela Melchior particularly wasted. Balls Up is a misfire in just about every way, and if this actually was the World Cup, Farrelly would be getting hit with a red card.
Balls Up is streaming now on Prime Video.
