"Balls Up" Review

On paper, Balls Up, the latest Amazon Prime Video Original has a solid comedic pedigree as it's written by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick (Zombieland & Deadpool series) and directed by Peter Farrelly of the Farrelly Brothers who ruled the 1990s with Dumb and Dumber, There's Something About Mary, and Shallow Hal and went on to direct 2018's Best Picture Oscar winner, Green Book. Big laughs guaranteed, right? Unfortunately, not enough of them.

Balls Up opens with Elijah (Paul Walter Hauser, if you've seen a movie with a schlubby fat guy who wasn't Jack Black in the past several years, that was him) stammering through a presentation rehearsal for a revolutionary condom he has designed which has extra material to also cover the berries in addition to the usual twig. He calls it The Testicle Sentinel.

The company boss, Burgess (SNL's Molly Shannon), tells him the pitch will be done by Brad (Marky Mark, "Good Vibrations", The Departed) from Sales and his pitch with the new name, Balls Up! (roll credits), wins over the head of the Brazilian Travel Ministry, Santos (Benjamin Bratt), who makes Balls Up! the official condom of the 2025 World Cup. However, the celebration gets wildly out of hand and Santos loses his position and the condom deal goes to a competitor. After this turn, Burgess fires Brad and Elijah along with other workers.

Three months later, a courier delivers a package to Brad containing a plane ticket and full VIP credentials to the World Cup Final. Apparently, despite the whole deal going sideways, the goodies weren't canceled for him and Elijah, whom he discovers is on the same flight. They decide to get along to attend the game, but after getting drunk, Elijah decides to attack the giant sausage mascot on the pitch. Brad chases after him to prevent trouble, but inadvertently interferes with what would've been Brazil's game-tying goal. Due to his interference, Brazil loses to arch-enemy neighbors Argentina. 

They are arrested, but turned loose on the streets where they would surely be lynched by the takes-their-football-VERY-seriously mobs. They briefly appear to be saved, but are then captured by armed men and taken to the jungle compound of cartel warlord Pavio (Sacha Baron Cohen in a bonkers performance). Because he won money on the game thanks to Brad's head, he won't kill them but he won't let them go either. To stay in his graces they pitch him the idea of using their larger condom to provide more carrying capacity for cocaine trafficking leading to a typical Farrelly low humor scene involving swallowing these huge phallic coke loads. After escaping the cartel, the pair encounter a weird group of anti-poachers in the jungle as they try to make their way home.

Balls Up starts off hilariously, but then has many long stretches of dullness punctuated by explosive moments of laughter like a scene where they're forced to do karaoke. This happens a lot in comedies as the first act is polished to a diamond mirror shine and then the rest just floats after it which is why surprises like Bottoms and Pizza Movie are such treats.

Cohen is clearly having fun doing a weird voice in a long flowing wig that makes him look like rock singer Sebastian Bach. Hauser does his usual weird fat guy thing and Marky Mark does his usual adequate comedic thing. (He only really seems to spark in the Ted movies.)

I thought Amazon was paywalling all HDR 4K content behind their even more expensive ad-free tier, but this came up as Dolby Vision allowing for some bright colors, but the cinematography is the blah overly bright look that modern comedies adhere to.

While not a total loss that goes tits up, Balls Up is too uneven and too long (104 mins) to score many goals. But when it does get funny, it gets VERY funny, but it just makes the lengthy lulls more lully.

Score: 5/10. Catch it on Prime Video.