‘Balls Up’ review: Mark Wahlberg and Paul Walker Hauser make their way through Peter Farrelly’s Rote Raunch-Fest

You can imagine the screenwriters of Peter Farrelly’s latest comedy imagining what they could do to top his previous work with his brother Bobby. After all, the Farrelly brothers are responsible for such memorable scenes as Jeff Daniels dealing with severe diarrhea in the film Dumb and dumberBen Stiller’s testicles are stuck in a zipper There’s something about MaryAnd of course, Cameron Diaz mistook Stiller’s ejaculation for hair gel in the same movie (my personal favorite).

What the writers came up with for at least one scene is somewhere in that league, though it’s a little derivative. An important moment in the title elegantly Balls upMark Wahlberg has an unfortunate accident in the Amazon jungle when a vampire fish swims into his urethra and implants itself in his penis. It is therefore up to his partner, Paul Walter Hauser, to suck the sharp-toothed little intruder out of Wahlberg’s manhood – which he does, needless to say, reluctantly.

Sorry if anyone feels offended, but it’s my job to report such crucial things. And to remind you, Farrelly is also responsible for the Oscar-winning Best Picture win Green book Wahlberg is a two-time Oscar nominee and Hauser is an Emmy and Golden Globe winner.

Balls upwhose title you’d think deserves at least an exclamation point, is an attempt to recapture the no-holds-barred smut of the ’90s and ’00s comedies that Farrelly made with his brother. It’s a genre that’s no longer popular at the box office, which doesn’t seem surprising considering that the sight and sound of Jeff Daniels defecating uncontrollably isn’t something you need to experience in premium formats. Hence, this film is not premiering in theaters but on Prime Video, and is not being pre-screened to the press. (What, don’t they think we have a sense of humor?)

Since convention is to discuss the plot, here it is. The film follows Brad (Wahlberg) and Elijah (Hauser), who work at a condom company designing and marketing products, respectively. Elijah comes up with an idea for a new condom, covering the testicles as well as the penis, to be introduced as the official condom for the upcoming World Cup. (Again, guys, this is what I get paid for.) Elijah’s favorite name for a condom, “The Testicle Sentinel,” doesn’t spell it out well, so the name was changed to, well, check out the movie’s title.

A meeting with a high-ranking Brazilian official (Benjamin Bratt) goes disastrously when, after he proudly announces that he’s been nine years sober, he’s encouraged to merely take a whiff of a glass of wine by Brad’s fast-paced speech. His subsequent booze and cocaine-fueled debauchery, including jumping naked off a balcony, leads to Brad and Elijah being fired. The scene isn’t particularly amusing, but it shows that Pratt is willing to go to extremes for a laugh and has maintained an impressive fitness regime.

The bumbling duo end up in Rio de Janeiro for the World Cup anyway, and under extremely ridiculous and inexplicable circumstances, they ruin the Brazilian team’s chances of winning and are promptly arrested for trespassing. Dubbed “idiots” by the entire country, they managed to escape from prison only to be pursued by angry mobs. (It should be noted that Farrelly deserves credit for not immediately inserting a shot of the Christ the Redeemer statue to establish the setting, despite being reassured that he would eventually get to it. Not that the film was actually shot in Brazil.)

However, more comedic complications ensue, including Brad and Elijah falling into the hands of a Brazilian mob boss played by Sacha Baron Cohen, who manages to score the film’s funniest moments with his hilariously incomprehensible accent.

The rest of the convoluted story includes moments such as the couple being forced at gunpoint to swallow their own brand of condoms laced with cocaine. engaging in a karaoke duet where they deliver a ridiculously high-pitched rendition of Gotti’s song “Somebody I Used to Know”; He was almost killed by a charred crocodile (“Didn’t You See Cocaine bear?” Brad asks Elijah; and encountering a group of American environmental activists, including a sex-crazed member who happily kills fishermen. And of course, the aforementioned vampire fish.

Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who wrote funnier scripts for Zombieland and dead pool Movies, here, operate in an uninspiring mode. Balls up The film loses its comedic punch as it goes on, and while Wahlberg and Hauser have shown strong comedic chops in the past, their laid-back understated delivery fails to deliver much in the way of excitement. Although some slack is taken up by comedy pros like Cohen and Molly Shannon as the duo’s vile, politically incorrect boss, this is a film that could have used the manic energy of Jack Black or Jim Carrey. Instead of feeling delightfully violated, it feels like just another time-filler in the age of streaming.