The idea of integrating two of my favorite sports of martial arts and basket ball sounds like action heaven!! But this movie is poorly executed. The performers certainly do what they can, but no matter how their acting performances are or martial acrobatics. It just doesn't get off the ground to involve or genuinely excite you. The cinematography is all over the place, leaving you confused about who is who or simply feeling queasy from the all the shaking and spinning camera angles. The martial arts and acrobatics is nothing that you haven't seen before, even placed with the basketball skills and setting. Even the emotional subplots aren't enough to get you connected to the characters to care about what happens to them in the brutal "life and death" basket ball courts. Better to spend your time watching the other quality Thai action movies like Ong Bak, Chocolate, Raging Phoenix and Bangkok Knockout...

When I bought this movie from Amazon, it was mostly because of the cover and the costumer reviews I glanced through there. However, I did fail to pick up that this movie was about a weird combo of martial arts and basketball. Had I known that, I probably wouldn't have picked it up. And one of the major factors in the decision for buying it was that there are some really amazing fighting movies coming out of Thailand.Now, having seen this movie, I sit here somewhat puzzled. The movie had a lot of fighting in it, as expected, and the scenes were quite nicely executed and brought on the screen. However, I do think the scene where one team was using metal pipes in the fight was a bit tame, especially because a lot of the time you could see that they weren't even aiming to hit the opponents with the pipes, they were just randomly striking at the air to make it look choreographed. That was sort of lame.Then the whole thing with the basketball tournament mixed up with brutal fighting, well... That really didn't work out all that nicely for me. It was like a weird hybrid version of "Rollerball".The story in "Fireball" is pretty thin, though I suspect that was to be expected of a movie of this caliber, as you watch this for the action and fighting, not the storyline and plot. Basically it is the story of a guy entering a brutal competition to raise money for his brothers brain surgery. And that is it, the rest is just action, fighting and violence."Fireball" is worth watching for the fight scenes, if nothing else, however, mind you, they are not on the same level as the ones seen in "Ong Bak".The acting in the movie was alright, actually. I wasn't overly familiar with the actors and actresses here in the movie, but I do think they did do alright with their given roles and characters.All in all, "Fireball" is an adequate movie if you are looking to be entertained in the way of constant action and fighting. However, if you like a movie with more depth and stuff to think about, this might not be the movie for you.

Action movies are a dime a dozen in the world of DVD. Go to any rental or place that carried DVD's, and you will find several-sometimes many-action movies that didn't get a theatrical release in the U.S. Personally, I think that the king of this market may be Lionsgate, who seem to crank out Direct to DVD exploitation junk on a regular basis, and action and horror are the main course. Ususally, this kind of fair tends to be nearly excruciatingly bad ("Wrong Side of Town" for example), so while not a miracle, it's almost sort of refreshing to find a watchable entry in the Thai action flick "Fireball." Arrested on a crime charge, Tai (Preeti Barameeanat) is set free thanks to his twin brother Tan. Problem is, Tan has suffered severe injuries and is in a coma (I know, I know it's serious.) Trying to trace how his brother ended up like this, Tai discovers the world of underground basketball gambling. He ends up in a "Fireball" team, or a team of five players who play-and fight-to the death until there is one man left standing, and in the process, learns more about what happened to Tan.On the plus side, the action scenes in "Fireball" are fantastic, not to mention bloody. People are impaled, bones are broken, flying kicks and punches are traded, blood spills-I could go on, but this aspect of the film is a lot of fun, and certainly earns it's R-rating. At it's best, the movie reminded me at times of 80's action movies like "Bloodsport", in that it shares a similar plot and has no clearer ambitions other than to give the viewer a bloody action movie that doesn't demand too much. In some cases here, it certainly succeeds.That out of the way, while the acting is fine, the movie falters in the fact that there is little is any real characterization going on in the film. Without anybody to care about, many of the scenes in which there isn't anything action or maybe even sex related feel too long, not to mention kind of boring. The fact that there isn't much as far as characterization is concerned also hurts the various sub-plots-particularly one involving mob bosses-as we aren't given any other reason to take interest other than "Hey, look at what's happening now!" Without any way for the audience to invest in any of these characters or plot points, the viewer ends up getting bored, waiting for the next action scene.I really can't recommend "Fireball", as it feels a bit too much like a missed opportunity to be a really fun piece of action trash. That out of the way, the action scenes are a lot of fun, and for a rainy day viewing, you can do a whole lot worse.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning The Thais are fast taking over the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese in terms of producing the most acclaimed martial arts films in the heart of their home countries, without the aid of any Hollywood CGI or props to spruce them up. We've had Tony Jaa in the Ong-bak films delivering his breath taking visual displays and now we have this less successful effort from director and co writer Thanakorn Pongsuwan, focusing on some competitors in an underground interfusion of basketball and muay thai, that obligatorily forgoes the use of a decent plot and unhammy acting. Sadly, it's also just never any fun, the close ups on the fights and their sheer relentless nature proving more distracting than entertaining and it all ends up feeling like it's really dragging on. Some fun here and there, but generally as much fun as a 'fireball' in the gut. **