We’re not sure what exactly we expected might be next from Peter Farrelly, the American filmmaker whose hits include Dumb & Dumber, Shallow Hal, Ricky Stanicky, and actual Oscar winner Green Book. Suffice it to say, a FIFA World Cup movie in which Mark Wahlberg and Paul Walter Hauser play a couple of marketing execs who head out to Brazil with high hopes of securing sponsorship for a *checks notes* full coverage cock-and-balls condom, only to spark global outrage and wind up on the run from cops, criminals, and lovers of the beautiful game alike was not it. Still, as the trailer for the Prime Video comedy attests below, this could actually be a bit of a cheeky comic blast;
Now that’s a whole lotta trailer people! We’ve got a clean-shaven PWH pitching a prophylactic that accommodates “the penis and the testicles”. We’ve got PWH ruining Brazil’s World Cup hopes by rugby tackling a hot dog shaped mascot with a condom on its head. We’ve got Wahlberg, PWH, and actual Benjamin Bratt piled into a clapped out car trying to escape the country while mad footy fans threaten to go full The Purge, criminal underworld dwellers circle, and actual alligators close in on them. And we’ve even got Sacha Baron Cohen in a bad wig, with an even worse accent, playing some sort of semi-camp Brazilian answer to Tony Montana. Seriously, what more could a comedy loving football fan with a puerile sense of humour ask for?
Oh, a synopsis would help? Well, sure. Here’s the official synopsis for Balls Up: “In this raunchy, over-the-top comedy, marketing executives Brad (Mark Wahlberg) and Elijah (Paul Walter Hauser) go “balls out” and pitch a bold full‑coverage condom sponsorship with the World Cup. After their drunken celebration in Brazil sparks a global scandal, they must outrun furious fans, criminals, and power-hungry officials to salvage their careers and make it home alive.”
Also featuring the likes of Eric André, Daniela Melchior, and Molly Gordon, there’s no shortage of funny bones in Balls Up‘s cast. We’ll see whether Peter Farrelly’s latest is nuts in a good way — or if it’s, er, a load of balls — when the movie hits Prime Video on 15 April. (And no, we don’t know why this imaginary FIFA World Cup is being held in Brazil, in 2025 — a non-World Cup year. Frankly, we have bigger questions that need answering here…)
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