Intramural

So this is how i watched the movie ,, first 30 minutes i started texting ,, second 30 minutes fast-forwarding and last 30 minutes i really can't remember .. The story is kinda lame ,, the jokes aren't funny and so motionless,, and the script is so loose, not that catchy and all over the place, so you can eat, do an errand come back and it'll be the same old story of the movie and you're not gonna be that lost :P I tried to find a scene where i can justify the Genre of the movie as a Comedy but i found none ,, well to be fair there was this scene when they started a fight in the Jail ,, honestly i weirdly laughed at that , and the commentators were also a bit funny and humorous ., but again the whole movie wasn't really what i expected it to be as a Saturday Night Live fan :\

As for the cast; mostly they were the SNL cast and i truly like them and all ,, but Here it feels like they overdid the stupidity performance a notch so it appeared to be a Bluccchhh ..

Overall,, i don't regret watching the movie , cuz i sorta wanted to see how the new SNL cast will do out of the SNL set and i did. but i shouldn't recommend it to anyone, unless you like the type of movies where you can pause it, go to sleep and then watch it the next day if you have time :\

The theatrical poster for Balls Out (also known as Intramural and another film that can't maintain consistency of what it should be called on a variety of different film websites) reminds me of the DVD covers of a direct-to-DVD National Lampoon film or a throwaway sex comedy one can find by lazily searching Netflix's streaming selection. Its boisterous display of the backside of a cheerleader in uniform, complete with a football reading the film's title is perplexing because it seems that MGM and Orion Pictures is marketing a totally different film here. After seeing the festival circuit success of a film like They Came Together, a film that was hellbent on calling out the clichés of romantic comedies, did these two immensely successful studios really think a film about parodying sports clichés couldn't succeed?

It's no real bother because the more under-the-radar Balls Out stays, the better. This is one of the many desperately unfunny comedies I've seen this year, almost down there with Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser and Mortdecai in the way these films seem to cloyingly pine for laughs by throwing their main character into any circumstance so long as it's allegedly funny. Balls Out, a film centered around a gaggle of misfit football players in college whom reunite their ragtag, intramural football team years after an injured teammate caused them to disband, is a film that sets itself up to fail right from the get-go. It's a film that tries to emphasize the stupidity, incredulity, and sheer brainlessness of a plethora of underdog sports films, but instead of going a separate way and rising above the clichés, Balls Out finds it funny to simply play by them in a loud and obvious manner. By the end, I had one question for director Andrew Disney and writer Bradley Jackson - what did you accomplish with this particular film? You didn't prove yourself better than the sports films you were lampooning, you just dumbed your film down to their level by positioning this film as the answer to all the clichés and predictabilities of a genre.

Where They Came Together had the chemistry of Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler at its core, constantly emphasizing their quick-witted nature and their plethora of zingers, Balls Out pathetically orchestrates one tired situation after another that involves the group of collegians yelling, screaming, and slamming one another to the ground in an entirely witless fashion. Laughing at the fact these imbeciles take intramural sports so seriously grows grating, especially when the memories of gym class from school-years gone past begin to surface, where all the torment and humiliation came into play.

At its core, however, Balls Out is simply not funny. Like its characters, it tries so hard to make us laugh by persistently nudging us, the audience, positioning itself to be wiser and more humorous than the film it's parodying, when it finds a way to be much lower than those films simply because it fails at its ultimate goal of being a successful comedy. This is also the case of a film that maybe could've made a successful two to three minute skit on Saturday Night Live (apparently this film stars members of comedy groups like that, Derrick Comedy, BriTANicK, and Good Neighbor, although I presume a lot of their talent got lost in translation); it certainly makes a nearly insufferable one-hundred minutes.

Starring: Jake Lacy, Beck Bennett, Jay Pharoah, Nikki Reed, and Kate McKinnon. Directed by: Andrew Disney.

I first saw this movie rated here at a 7.7 and another rating site had 79%. The actors are C list and was probably shot in 2 days with a high school budget. I watched this movie for 30 minutes, which was 26 minutes too long. I was just waiting for it to be funny, interesting, or in any way entertaining. I'm not one of those raters who rate comedies against the likes of Shawshank Redemption. I even like stupid comedies if there is some effort put in or actual humor involved. It's kind of annoying that this movie ever showed up on my screen which led me to write this review. I will be shocked if the rating is above a 3 after a week. It was released yesterday straight to DVD for a reason. Don't waste your time and certainly don't waste your money!

Ignore the title and poster art for Balls Out. It's not a National Lampoon presents type of "movie". Once you've decided not to judge a movie by it's poster, sit back and enjoy a surprisingly witty, slapstick, sports movie that has an unbelievable cast.

Balls Out has several SNL cast members (Jay Pharoh, Beck Bennett,Kate McKinnon) and some Youtube/Comedy Troop stars that fill out the roles. The biggest names are Jake Lacy (Obvious Child) and Nikki Reed (Twilight series) who are the focal point of the movie.

What makes Balls Out different is it's supporting cast. It's the kind of film where the supporting cast steals the show and you end up liking them a lot more than the aforementioned actors. Without a doubt, Beck Bennett is worth seeing this movie alone. He's like Stan Gable from Revenge of the Nerds turned up to 11. Kate McKinnon has very few scenes, but she steals every single one of them. In a few years, people will look back at this movie and wonder how in the hell they got all of these stars in one movie.

There are some great scenes and hilarious moments that come from out of nowhere. The dick and fart jokes are few but they land; a refreshing style of comedy from an indie film.

My only beef with "Balls Out" is Jake Lacy and Nikki Reed. They're pretty to look at and void of charisma. Jake may have played his role a little too straight in a movie of outrageous characters. Other than that, this movie is a MUST SEE. You can sound cool and say you this before "fill in the blank actor/actress" got super famous. Stop reading and watch it already!!!!!!

I stuck with it the whole way and like many of the cast already from their other endeavors (primarily SNL). This one simply fails to evolve into anything more than a few chuckles and yuks here and there.

The announcers added some good lines and the lead is likable. The pep/anti-pep talk was also a good joke. Technically speaking, the film is very good. It was shot well, editing and so forth are nicely executed.

My summary is that it is too weak for a five, but I didn't hate it either. You most assuredly should not pay to see this movie. Free...okay, but at the end, I can only give it a 4 of 10.