The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters
3/4
Rated PG-13 for A Brief Sexual Reference
Although technically a documentary, "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" is closer to an underdog sports movie than something like "West of Memphis," "Citizen Koch," or even "Video Games: The Movie." It does feature real people and the events really did happen (more or less), but it has a strong narrative structure.
Steve Wiebe is your average put upon sad sack. He's been laid off from his dream job at Boeing, he excelled at sports but froze up during competition, and so on. One day Steve hears of a competition for getting the high score in the "Donkey Kong" arcade game, so he decides to get a machine and see if he can beat it. That puts him in conflict with Billy Mitchell, who has held the record since 1982.
When I say that this is a sports movie, I mean exactly that. It has the upstart hero who is impossible not to like, a cruel and villainous veteran defending his title (complete with a sleazy henchman), and the montage of hard work showing the hero going from amateur to pro. And of course, it comes down to a mano a mano at the very end. That this involves real people rather than actors makes it all the more intriguing.
Actually, calling "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" a documentary is misleading. Director Seth Gordon (who would later go on to direct the uneven "Horrible Bosses" and the wretched "Identity Thief") selectively edited the movie to make it more compelling. For example, while Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell are positioned as bitter rivals in the movie, they're actually on much better terms in real life. Then again, Michael Moore is considered a documentarian, so I guess the genre has a very loose definition.
This is not the most professionally made documentary. The film looks like it was shot on low-quality digital video, shot selection is stale, and it suffers from a lot of other amateurish problems. However, those are forgivable. What is less forgivable is its length. At 79 minutes, the film is too short. More screen time would have allowed the characters and their situations to breathe. The film feels like its hurtling towards the finish line trying to touch all its bases while never stopping to smell the roses. A lot of the would-be emotional highs and lows don't hit as hard as Gordon would like because we're never given the chance to really be drawn into the story.
That said, this movie is a lot of fun. Film critics Richard Roeper and Robert Wilonsky both compared it to a Christopher Guest movie, and it's hard not to see the resemblance. Almost everyone in this movie is quirky and dorky (to one degree or another). Yet Gordon never mocks anyone in this movie. They're geeky, yes, but they're also very smart.
"The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" is not, in any way, a classic documentary or an "important" film of any kind. But that's not a criticism. This is a movie about a few people with a huge passion for what they do. And in many ways, that's just as good.
Rated PG-13 for A Brief Sexual Reference
Although technically a documentary, "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" is closer to an underdog sports movie than something like "West of Memphis," "Citizen Koch," or even "Video Games: The Movie." It does feature real people and the events really did happen (more or less), but it has a strong narrative structure.
Steve Wiebe is your average put upon sad sack. He's been laid off from his dream job at Boeing, he excelled at sports but froze up during competition, and so on. One day Steve hears of a competition for getting the high score in the "Donkey Kong" arcade game, so he decides to get a machine and see if he can beat it. That puts him in conflict with Billy Mitchell, who has held the record since 1982.
When I say that this is a sports movie, I mean exactly that. It has the upstart hero who is impossible not to like, a cruel and villainous veteran defending his title (complete with a sleazy henchman), and the montage of hard work showing the hero going from amateur to pro. And of course, it comes down to a mano a mano at the very end. That this involves real people rather than actors makes it all the more intriguing.
Actually, calling "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" a documentary is misleading. Director Seth Gordon (who would later go on to direct the uneven "Horrible Bosses" and the wretched "Identity Thief") selectively edited the movie to make it more compelling. For example, while Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell are positioned as bitter rivals in the movie, they're actually on much better terms in real life. Then again, Michael Moore is considered a documentarian, so I guess the genre has a very loose definition.
This is not the most professionally made documentary. The film looks like it was shot on low-quality digital video, shot selection is stale, and it suffers from a lot of other amateurish problems. However, those are forgivable. What is less forgivable is its length. At 79 minutes, the film is too short. More screen time would have allowed the characters and their situations to breathe. The film feels like its hurtling towards the finish line trying to touch all its bases while never stopping to smell the roses. A lot of the would-be emotional highs and lows don't hit as hard as Gordon would like because we're never given the chance to really be drawn into the story.
That said, this movie is a lot of fun. Film critics Richard Roeper and Robert Wilonsky both compared it to a Christopher Guest movie, and it's hard not to see the resemblance. Almost everyone in this movie is quirky and dorky (to one degree or another). Yet Gordon never mocks anyone in this movie. They're geeky, yes, but they're also very smart.
"The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" is not, in any way, a classic documentary or an "important" film of any kind. But that's not a criticism. This is a movie about a few people with a huge passion for what they do. And in many ways, that's just as good.
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