Balls Out: Gary The Tennis Coach

Direct-to-DVD movies can be hit or miss. Both Marvel and DC Comics have had great success with their animated line of direct to DVD movies; then there's a film like Balls Out: Gary The Tennis Coach, which sat in limbo for almost two years before it's eventual DVD release.

Seann William Scott play Gary Houseman, a former semi-pro tennis player who, after a lackluster attempt at joining the tennis circuit, decides to hang it all up in Nebraska and becomes a janitor at a high school.

One day while the high school team is practicing, he gets bit by the tennis bug and runs out onto the court showing the team "how it's done," since they're very bad. Coach Lew Tuttle (Randy Quaid) is impressed by Gary and recruits him as his assistant.

Gary is captivated with the coach, and wants to impress him; however, the Coach has a heart attack and dies. Since Gary isn't a teacher, the school can't officially make him a coach, but makes another teacher the head coach and says Gary is the co-assisant coach. Gary wants to coach the tennis team to a state championship in honor of Coach Lew.

The movie is not very good, nor funny, and you can see why its release was delayed for so long. Scott is good at playing loser characters, but even he can't save this film.

Nor can director Danny Leiner who's directed Scott before in the very funny "Dude Where's My Car," and who also directed "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle."

Thankfully, there's no commentary for this film: it's so bad, who would want to watch it twice? There's an outtakes reel, some deleted scenes, and a Making Of featurette called "The Making of Balls Out," where the cast and crew profess their love for this film, but what they're talking about and the finished product are two totally different things.