Ball of Wax

Intriguing, but also somewhat confusing, Daniel Kraus's Ball of Wax is an unusual drama about a rich and well-regarded first baseman for the fictional baseball team the Carolina Devils. Apparently bored with success, player Bret Packard (Mark Mench) embarks on a campaign of brinksmanship and mind games with his teammates, using his smooth powers of persuasion to set the men against one another: compelling two pitchers to compete for the largest number of batters they can hit with the ball; more or less forcing another teammate to cheat on his wife; and indirectly encouraging one player to destroy the health of the Devils' manager. Writer-director Kraus doesn't really provide a clear motivation for Packard's surge of pathological evil, and his script is arbitrarily structured (despite clever chapter headings--“Bottom of the 6th,” etc.), but the filmmaker does make ingenious use of shadows, close-ups, long shots, uncomfortable silences, and Mench's penchant for telegraphing danger while looking and sounding amazingly innocent. A strong optional purchase. [Note: DVD extras include audition footage, and an NPR segment about the film. Bottom line: a small extras package for an oddball indie film.] (T. Keogh)