Lady Ballers: An Honest Review

If you aren’t a subscriber to The Daily Wire, you should be. My wife and I watch something on the service nearly every night, whether it is Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro,  Michael Knowles, or Andrew Klavan on Fridays. There is always something worth watching, and we have even canceled a couple of other subscription services because we didn’t watch them anymore.

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I was even invited to the premiere of their new movie, Lady Ballers, as a member of the press, and I desperately wanted to go. Unfortunately I couldn’t, which I suppose might be a good thing as the FBI apparently thinks that going to Daily Wire events is an arrestable offense.

Producing entertainment content that is not woke is part of The Daily Wire’s strategy to retake the culture one production at a time. Rather than complain about the sad state of Hollywood entertainment, Jeremy Boreing, the co-CEO of the company, is committed to producing alternatives. The Daily Wire now produces children’s programming, and The Lady Ballers is a new comedy production intended to compete for the eyeballs of adults not looking for political commentary but entertainment.

The premise of the movie is pretty simple, as any good comedy should be. A washed-up coach and his former players decide to take advantage of the new transgender-friendly environment to dominate women’s sports, and in particular women’s basketball, the sport at which they had once excelled. Hilarity ensues.

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Despite being unable to attend the premiere party (did I say I really wish I could have?), I found time to sit down to watch the movie with a critical eye. Not just as a fan of The Daily Wire but also as a two-bit movie critic.

So here’s my honest take:

The movie is good.

Quite good, actually. But not perfect.

First of all, the more you know about the personalities at The Daily Wire, the more you will be amused. Several inside jokes will fly right by you if you are totally new to the company’s content, although by no means do you have to be a connoisseur of conservative commentary to get most of the jokes. But if you have watched the dour Matt Walsh, the political commentator, you will appreciate the sunny hippy-dippy Matt Walsh in the movie even more than if you have never seen his shows.

Cameos from Ben Shapiro and Andrew Klavan are hilarious, and Shapiro’s made me laugh out loud. Knowles has a larger role in the film, and he hits the nail on the head, just as you would expect from him, even though he is a Yalie. If you have ever watched Backstage, the show in which all the hosts come together with Boreing to jaw about everything, you will smile to see these guys play either to our counter to their type.

Riley Gaines and Ted Cruz make cameos, and if you didn’t think Cruz could add anything to a movie I have a surprise. His couple seconds on the screen were genuinely funny.

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Now for the critique side of the equation, which I fear may cost me an invitation to the premiere of the next film they produce: it is too long.

Not too long, as in “it drags,” because it doesn’t at all. I never felt that “Will this never end?!” emotion that a bad film will give you. It was fun every step along the way, although I felt the ending was just one teaspoon of sugar too sweet.

It was too long in the sense that it could have used tighter editing. The kind of editing where a jerk tells the director that the scene he loves needs to be cut to pick up the movie’s pacing or because the joke is not quite as good as the others in the film. This is a flaw that you find in all sorts of movies coming out of Hollywood.

What isn’t at all in this movie is the flaw you often see in conservative entertainment: putting the message before the entertainment. This isn’t Hallmark schlock or those Christian movies that make you want to wretch. It is meant to be funny first, and it is. The movie could be in a theater and make money, but for the fact that there would be riots in every city.

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The runtime of the movie was 1:50, and it would have been better if they had been ruthless and cut it down to 1:30. That would have left some smiles on the cutting room floor, which would have been painful for Jeremy because this was, I get the sense, his baby. But it would have made a good comedy into a superb one.

The movie has been a hit with audiences, getting a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes from audiences and not a peep out of the professional critics who would be afraid to touch it. Some Lefties have deigned to attack it, but they hardly need to see a Daily Wire movie to pan it. Any one of us could write the scathing reviews they would because they are so formulaic and uninformed.

My own rating? It had the potential to be a 9, but without the editing I mentioned, I gave it a 7-7.5. It is worth your time, and as I said, you should subscribe to The Daily Wire in any case. You can learn why I think Matt Walsh is hilarious once you figure his humor out and why I like Michael Knowles despite his Yale roots. Everybody already knows Ben Shapiro and Andrew Klavan are always worth your time.

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I am not a Candace Owens fan, but if you are, she has a show there too.

And Backstage–I wish it were more than once monthly or so (it has been months, unfortunately, since their last). Backstage is where all the Daily Wire personalities get together to talk about…stuff. And I love it. I genuinely love it.

There is something magical about the interaction between the hosts and Jeremy Boreing. My wife asks me when the next one is on because the mix of the various hosts is perfect. Whether your interests are intellectual, religious, or our crazy culture, you will find something to like in their discussions.

So, do I recommend Lady Ballers? Yes, I do. It is well worth your time and your subscription to The Daily Wire.

Now, let’s see if I get invited to the next premiere.

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