Konterr Brilliant and touching

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

brendon116 This movie does exactly what it sets out to do. It is not meant to be some cinematic epiphany or social commentary. It is suppose to be funny and stupid and it is definitely funny. If you liked Stiffler from the American Pie movies, imagine if he coached high school tennis a few years later. That is what this movie is and I loved it. If you want to think, this is not the movie for you. But if you want to be able to just enjoy a movie and turn off your brain for a couple hours, this is a perfect movie. Seann William Scott fans will enjoy this. Randy Quaid plays a good a-hole tennis coach at the beginning. Also not for people who are squeamish or sensitive.

p-stepien Gary (Sean William Scott) is a failed tennis player, who did some semi-pro circuits in Mexico before getting thrown out. Penniless with his dreams in tatters in ends up in a small Nebraska town, where he decides to drop tennis and focus on different goals. Like being a school janitor. Fate has a funny way of punching you in the balls and push comes to shove when Gary ends up training the school's loser tennis team.Sean William Scott is an immensely talented comedian with so many areas he could explore with his comedic feel. Unfortunately most of his career paths involve eating turds, defecating and/or barfing. This movie is no exception to the rule with fart jokes coupled with some midget humour being the norm and slightly more congenial jokes coming sparse, if at all. That said some of the especially absurd humour really made me laugh.The movie really doesn't build too well and tends to bore a bit with no real story building apart from the stereotypical losers turning into winners. All in all this is Sean William Scott running the show and if you have disliked all the stuff he has done in the past just pass on this movie. For the rest - nothing special, but if you have a couple of beers, spare time and no great expectations why not...

smokescreen79 I watched this movie and was truly surprised just how much I liked this. In more recent months I've acquired a really serious mindset. Something which non the less can be amused. And Balls Out Gary is with out a doubt a movie that I can enjoy time and time again without ever finding less enjoying. Its beauty , if I, like other critics have taken the liberty to judge it by their belief of where and how the humor misses its target, is in its sincerity of oddity and aloofness which it doesn't miss at all.If most of the jokes fail, which some suggest, a question emerges as if that would even be possible, hence; Might it not be a question of being totally misunderstood on how it was meant to be understood? Was it supposed to even be understood in some degree, further than the intent to entertain ? When did movies become such a serious subject, where ones enjoyment could even, beyond my comprehension, be judged by certain regulations and rules on how something has to be delivered and on account of quality and quantity of loud out laughter ? I enjoyed this movie. I din't laugh even once, didn't even find it amusing comical enough to some degree to be able to ask myself if there really wasn't even the slightest sense of amusement. But I can say this; A relief, without the comical relief , that often is just malicious with a good conscience anyways. A constant curiosity for Garies escapades and personal expression and an actually believable character, resembling a person with social autism, on and off, who has a life long obsession for tennis. His intensity and total disregard for how he could be regarded in an questionable light makes him totally lovable, if you ask me. Like a very successful sociable , yet awkward personality as most would find I'm, succeeds in being a curious and admirable person."If god didn't exist, would you create him?" I see myself in Gary.And as for the punchlines. Everything is believable, in a more foreign sense of humor, that misses it purposely. But also being more based on a more serious note, where the humor i can't find as an additive but a side effect.

MacAindrais Balls Out: The Gary Houseman Story (2009) ** From Dodgeball to ping pong to basketball and even ice skating, sports have been the basis for wacky oddball comedies as of late, some better and funnier than others. This one doesn't star Will Ferrel or Vince Vaughan. Instead, it's Sean William Scott. He's been been funny before, so O.K., not a bad start. The film's script apparently also won an award, I'm told. I'm not really sure how. There's nothing new or unexpected. It's the usual routine: a group of misfits gets an unruly new coach who turns them around and leads them to glory.Sean William Scott plays tennis hasbeen/never-was Gary. He went on the Mexican semi-pro tour after a few incidents in college, before settling down in Nebraska, because it's as good as anywhere really. Plus the real estate is cheap (referring to a banged up motor home). He became an engineer - the custodial branch. One day he gets the itch an runs out on the tennis court while the high school team is practicing. The coach (Randy Quaid) recruits him as his assistant. Gary, for some reason, is enamored with the coach, but then he dies. Because he's not a teacher, the school can't make him the head coach, at least officially. The new head coach (or co-assistant coach) has no experience with tennis, or any other sport he says. In order to honor the late coach, Gary is determined to coach the tennis team to a state championship.The cast includes lots of the usual oddballs: the gifted tennis player who reminds Gary of himself; wimpy kids afraid of getting hit with the ball; the sexy foreign language teacher as the subject of the protagonist's desires. There's also the late coach's teenage daughter, who interestingly, but oddly, has the hots for Gary before becoming the love interest of the teams star player. Gary even recruits the weird foreign kid - a pro ping pong player from the Philippines. He's never played tennis before, but his hand/eye coordination must be amazing, as Gary points out.Balls Out actually does manage to be occasionally endearing with its goofy characters. And Sean William Scott really can play a dirty greaser very well - thanks most probably to his ability to grow a mean fumanchu. He seems so greasy it's almost offputting at times, but funny at others. When the late coach's daughter plants one on him, for a minute it seems plausible that he'll actually go through with it. That scene does lead to the film's mandatory act of turmoil and challenge. Of course, it's overcome though.I had a fair share of laughs, but only a few roarers. The exchange student is comical in how quickly he himself becomes almost Gary's partner in crime after moving into the motor home with him. In the end, Balls Out just isn't consistently funny enough, and too many of the big jokes fall flat. The film will likely be released amid the January slew of films that studios would rather forget they made. I can't see the movie making a big box office splash, but it might do alright depending on what weekend it lands.