Balls Up

Hilarious and bad. Those two things can coexist, and Balls Up is the proof.

The raunchy stuff lands. It really does. I laughed more than I want to admit, and there was a stretch in the middle where I briefly considered walking out anyway because the plot is just that thin. It's wallpaper. It's barely there. The premise gets you in the door and then the movie shrugs and says "good luck."

Hilarious and bad.

Thank god for the cast. Mark and Paul are firing on all cylinders, doing what they do best, and it carries entire scenes that would otherwise sink. Sacha Baron Cohen shows up and is exactly the Sacha Baron Cohen you want. Benjamin Bratt was the genuine surprise of the night for me; I wasn't expecting him to slot in the way he did, but he did. Even the support cast pulled their weight, which is more than I can say for the script they were handed.

So where does that leave me. Disappointed, mostly. I wanted more than "funny people doing funny things on top of nothing." It stuck with me, but partly because I'm still annoyed about it.

Would I watch it again? No. Would I tell certain friends to check it out? Yeah, the ones who'll forgive a weak plot for a good laugh. You know who you are.