Film faults in serving laughter to audience

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As America's odds-on favorite to win pingpong gold at the Olympics, he's on cereal boxes and magazine covers.

But after he finds out his father bet on his match, he chokes under pressure, losing to his East German rival and causing his father's death at the hands of crime lord Feng (Christopher Walken).

Nineteen years later, an adult Randy (Dan Fogler) is performing stage pingpong until an FBI agent (George Lopez) comes calling. Agent Rodriguez needs Randy to infiltrate Feng's underworld pingpong tournament so that the FBI can uncover Feng's nefarious activities.

Randy must be retrained and turns to blind pingpong master Wong (James Hong) and his niece Maggie (Maggie Q). As the only female of note in the film, Maggie naturally becomes the love interest.

Written by Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant ("Reno 911!”), and directed by Garant, the film spends more time congratulating itself on its absurdist humor (Walken saying "toodles”; Randy's obsession with Def Leppard) than it does actually making jokes that connect. Repeating crotch injuries and jokes about the blind multiple times don't make the jokes more funny.

Simply mixing "sports comedy” with "kung-fu parody” isn't enough to make "Balls of Fury” worthwhile. The handful of humorous moments found in "Balls of Fury” might be enough to persuade some to see it based on its trailer — but those jokes are spread thin across 90 minutes.

Fogler, whose background is on Broadway, comes across here as a low-rent Jack Black. Poorly lighted and questionably directed, "Balls of Fury” seems aimed to appeal to those who find Will Ferrell's sports comedies too highbrow.

— Matthew Price