Intramural

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.

Small-town college student has to choose between ambition and passion.

Iron rule of movie selection: always ignore the hot piece of ass on the cover. A few chuckles from this, but when I checked the time there were still 60 mins to go. Fcuk me.

In one scene a guy in a wheelchair delivers a sarcastic slow hand-clap, but keeps interrupting himself to roll the wheelchair forward - funny idea, but zero reaction from me. Plenty of parody of feel-good sports movies, channelling The Mean Machine with a touch of Ben Stiller. Actors, direction, jokes, editing all good - enough for a laugh-a-minute, but for all that input it just doesn't click.

How does a movie die on screen? I dunno - the mystery of comedy. I guess it comes down to the spirit of the thing, and the tongue-in-ass mockery of macho culture comes across as smug.

There was a hint of the pointlessness of college education, but they didn't go for the political slant.

Ignore the external reviews - this sadly is a fail.

Caleb Fuller (Jake Lacy) quits Intramural football after his receiver friend gets paralyzed getting kicked in the balls. Four years later, Vicky Albrecht (Kate McKinnon) asks him to marry her publicly at her birthday party after 5 and a half months of dating. He accidentally says yes. He encounters former mate Vinnie and reunites the old team Panthers together again. His nemesis Dick leads the Titans. Caleb falls for Dick's sister Meredith Downs (Nikki Reed).

Comedy is easy to rate and hard to explain. I can't be absolutely sure. This is not outrageous enough. I barely cared about any of the characters and laughed even less. Everybody is trying to shine in a wacky character playoff. None of them are funny or the least likable. Jake Lucy as the straight man is lackluster. This is a comedy troupe B-team trying out their material and it's getting crickets. Despite the female butt shoot on the cover, there isn't any nudity humor. There is nothing overtly awful but it's simply not good. I blame Kickstarter.

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!

I have always been a big fan of sports comedy. This one is an instant classic. Kate McKinnon will be a 20-30 million dollar actress someday, she is absolutely amazing in this film. The other cast members are great also. Beck Bennett was made for the "bad" guy role and Jake Lacy pulls it all together with the nice guy just trying to get through life thing he has going on in this film. Plenty of laugh out loud humor. I watched this movie when it was called "Intramural" at Tribeca Film Festival and now I have seen it as the re-branded "Balls Out", it is the same film. Highly recommended. If you like movies like "Dodge Ball" then you will love "Balls Out". Thanks for making something different and fun!