Balls Out

source: Balls Out

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.

Caleb played by Jake Lacy from the final season of The Office television series is a senior preparing to graduate from college. He is in his fifth year and has already been in college for too long. But he doesn't quite want to leave yet. He sees the "concrete wall" of commitment laid out in front of him and gets scared. He runs away from this iron cage of commitment and responsibility by forming an intramural football team as an escape. The group that he forms can best be summed up by the advice they give each other on how to get with freshman girls in college. You have to remember:, "A little knock knock, welcome to class…tap that ass". The jokes throughout the movie are very intelligent and many are easily missed. But the movie is clearly geared towards men. There is one quip about Uday Hussein being a Quaker that was particularly heinous. During a team meeting a member of the team asks, "What's more dangerous, a man with no fear or a man with nothing to lose?". Caleb turns the question on its head with, "What about a man who's not afraid of losing?". "Balls Out" is the rare comedy that is both funny and self-aware. The film is chock full of hilarious moments like during another team meeting when the adopted mentor of the team teaches, "There is a classic structure to all underdog sports movies. Rocky, Hosiers, Air Buds 1,2, 3 and 5". One teammate interrupts, "What about Air Bud 4?". "A dog playing baseball? Are you insane?". Watch this movie if looking for a few laughs. It is sure to deliver. As the stoner commentator narrates at the end of the film, "In my nine and a half years of college, I thought I'd seen it all. I witnessed a 2,000 cup game of beer pong that claimed the lives of seven bros. I've seen Frisbee so ultimate, it threatened the supremacy of God himself. I've even seen my colleague Dan here swallow two keys of pure Bolivian heroin to make good on a series of increasingly misguided cockfighting bets. But I never thought I'd witness such an amazing game of intramural football".

The film is a spoof of sports films. It centers on inter-mural flag football teams. It gives us the initial game and then goes to five years later as they get back the team. The main character is Caleb (Jake Lacy). he is engaged to a woman he doesn't love and then meets the love of his life, the twin sister of a despicable person on the other team. The film is filled with the inane and cliches and near the midpoint, the plot is explained on the board in generic sports film terms. The humor is basically low brow and crude, but not bottom feeders in this regard. There are no f-bombs, sex, or nudity...except for maybe a brief locker room backside scene. The sports slogans get mixed and confused as I question if "Rocky III" may have been better than "Rocky." Kate McKinnon was classic as the cringe worthy rich fiancee.