by Will Hume
Balls Up, 2026.
Directed by Peter Farrelly.
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Paul Walter Hauser, Benjamin Bratt, Eva De Dominici, Daniela Melchior, Molly Shannon, Sacha Baron Cohen and Eric André.
SYNOPSIS:
Two fired marketing executives played (Mark Wahlberg and Paul Walter Hauser) drunkenly interfere in a Brazilian World Cup match, causing everyone in the country to hunt them down.
Balls Up is exactly the kind of workable Hollywood premise that back in the day would be reserved for D-List actors like Pauly Shore or one of Adam Sandler’s buddies, but given the current Hollywood economy goes to the once A-List Wahlberg who never re-emerged from pandemic streaming exile. The execution of this premise, given the talent involved is cinematic vaporware.
The film marks Wahlberg’s third made with David Ellison’s Skydance Media, a company that makes its money mostly by shipping content like this to streaming platforms where gross dollars are calculated more privately. Out of Ellison’s last 10 theatrical films; 7 have been box office flops and 2 of the 3 hits starred Tom Cruise (the third was Air). Considering this is the company that successfully bought Paramount and are trying to buy Warner Bros., the future of cinema looks grim.
Directed by two-time Academy Award winner Peter Farrelly, the film at least improves marginally on his previous streaming effort, the godawful Ricky Stanicky, by simply moving the majority of the action outside of a house though that is not a high bar. Visually, the production is artificial to a distracting degree: CGI water, CGI props aside from a generic penis, and an overuse of shallow depth of field by cinematographer John Brawley that poorly masks its Queensland soundstage. The film is never convincing as a real environment, or crucially a very funny or interesting one.
One area where the package doesn’t totally collapse is casting. Longtime Farrelly collaborator Rick Montgomery once again assembles a capable supporting group, continuing a partnership that goes back to Dumb & Dumber and was even maintained through the drama Green Book. Known supporting actors cycle through the film at regular intervals, injecting brief moments of energy into an otherwise inert script. Benjamin Bratt, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Eric André each arrive, but none are given material that translates into actual humor. The film is full of capably funny people or good actors with nothing funny to say.
Narratively, the film struggles with coherence. Its second act twist hinges on a contrivance so nonsensical it can’t even register as stupid (or funny). Paul Walter Hauser’s character refuses the help of a defense attorney he met seconds ago (played by Daniella Melchior) because he does not want to ruin her reputation. She does not show up again until the end when her presence is required to conclude the story. The writers must have intended to include her as a romantic interest then realized how much work or money that would include and just left her out. The resulting story lacks any dynamism.
In the smallest sign of human authorship; Reese and Wernick’s tendency toward mean-spirited scenarios—forcing protagonists into humiliation and physical distress—does surface occasionally, lending brief texture, although “texture” for lack of a better word is too generous. One gag involving a translator app with Larry David’s voice produces the film’s only genuine laugh. There’s also a thematic undercurrent about soccer as a unifying cultural force across social strata—fans, criminals, and institutions alike—but developing themes with the exceptions of Green Book, is something Farrelly does not seem that interested in. The audience deserves better.
Wahlberg’s performance highlights a career trajectory in crisis. Once a bankable theatrical lead in both blockbuster and prestige films, he now appears under the summoning of an eight-figure check locked into a cycle of low-stakes streaming slop. When he sings “Somebody That I Used to Know” staring vacantly beyond the camera while being held hostage, the moment lands less as comedy and more as unintended commentary. Watching a scene with a CGI “piss fish” attack, whereby a fish swims up Wahlberg’s urine stream and requires removal is the kind of sequence that underlines how far removed this material is from his respectable theatrical output.
When Hauser’s character rescues Wahlberg late in the film, it comes across as less a narrative turning point and more an extraction—from an even worse version of the same movie. Any potentially interesting ideas exist only at the conceptual level. On screen, they never materialize.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★
Will Hume
