Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
10/7/07
As a child of the 80's, “classic”
arcade video games meant a lot to me growing up, and I still play them
on my PS2 from time to time. As we learn from the new documentary
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, they mean quite a
bit more than that to some people. There's something inside us all
that burns to be The Best, to be Special, and years of study, skill and
hard work have allowed the subjects of the film to record higher scores
on the Donkey Kong video game (the one that introduced Mario to the world)
than anyone else alive. It doesn't matter that their scores “don't
mean anything”: they mean everything to them, and the movie focuses
its' unblinking camera upon what these people and those around them are
willing to do, and not do, to claim that record. The King of Kong
is superficially about Donkey Kong, but at its' heart it's an ethics lesson
of the highest order.
In 1982, LIFE Magazine brought
a group of the country's top video game players together for a photo shoot.
One clearly stood out: with his unflinching self confidence and self-aggrandizing
persona, Billy Mitchell was the closest thing the gaming community would
ever have to a Star. Years passed and new generations of games consigned
Billy's scores on the likes of Donkey Kong and Missile Command to obscure
trivia, but for a small group the passion for these games continued to
burn. Billy built a hot sauce empire and had a small group of sycophants
who dreamed of him leading them back to national prominence. Among
them: Walter Day, a former top player who created Twin Galaxies,
a group that methodically evaluates and certifies score records on all
the classic games and Brian Kuh, a wannabe Donkey Kong champion who views
himself as “the prodigy”. On the opposite coast, we meet Steve Wiebe,
a multi-talented athlete, musician and artist who hasn't been able to parlay
any of his skills into a career. Just as he's laid off by Boeing,
Steve latches onto the Donkey Kong machine in his garage as something he
can excel at. Soon enough, he's played and videotaped a high score
that eclipses a decades-old Mitchell record and ships it to Twin Galaxies
for approval. But if Mitchell, the Future of the Past, can be beaten,
what does that mean? So the video game community, led by its' hero,
circles the wagons to keep Steve's record from being recognized.
Steve then crosses the country to the Funspot Arcade and breaks the record
again in person. But then emerges a mysterious video of Mitchell
posting an unthinkably high score. Who cares about the flickers in
the video that make the score impossible to truly trust? A new record
is again declared. Is there any way little Steve Wiebe, the quiet
first-year school teacher, can beat a system that seems designed to keep
him down?
The King of Kong introduces
a unique cast of characters from two different worlds. The Wiebes
are impossible not to root for: we watch shy, doormat Steve slowly
learn to stand up for himself as his wife Nicole remains supportive above
and beyond the call while their kids worry about Dad's pursuit of history
(watch the immortal moment where his little girl reminds him that some
people ruin their lives trying to get into the Guinness Book of World
Records). The people around Steve (we also meet his parents and
a few friends) may not “get” the Donkey Kong thing, but they know that
he needs SOMETHING to turn his life around, and this is gonna have to do.
On the other side, it's amazing to watch what happens to Mitchell, who
has a successful business and shouldn't need the record the way Steve does,
when his claim to fame is challenged. He's clearly decades removed
from his ability to set a video game record, but he can't allow anyone
else to do it either, and he seems to visibly shrink on camera as his schemes
to outwit rather than outplay Steve become first desperate and finally
pathetic. His henchman Kuh also comes off terribly, unable to even
fake good sportsmanship as he races back and forth from Wiebe's Donkey
Kong machine to a phone to update Billy on the threat to his honor.
The movie is a fantastic
underdog story, but what takes it to another level is what happens at a
climactic second trip to Funspot, where the Cult of Billy is certain he'll
take a ten mile drive to face Steve, who's once again traveled cross-country
for the event, head-to-head. Wiebe never cheats, never schemes and
just keeps doing his best while Mitchell's evasive behavior becomes sadder
and sadder until he can barely make eye contact with the camera, and soon
it doesn't even matter what the final score is: Steve has won because
he is clearly the better man. The movie doesn't even need Leonard
Cohen's "Everybody Knows" playing in the background (though it uses it
brilliantly) to make its' point: it's in the eyes of all the other
participants.
Director Seth Gordon and
Producer Ed Cunningham filmed multiple stories of the quest for high scores
in the world of competitive gaming (an 80-year old woman with a gift for
Q*Bert makes the cut in a supporting role), but struck gold in the eternal
struggle for the Donkey Kong title and ended up building their entire movie
around it. They do a sensational job of not only letting people's
own words speak for (and in some cases damn) them, but also of pumping
up the cinematic drama as much as possible. A particular, near-impossible
Donkey Kong move involving Mario dodging a jumping spring is dramatic almost
ever time they cut to it, and the use of 80's pop tunes on the soundtrack
is flawless. Steve and Billy conform perfectly to their hero and
villain roles (funny how no one ever noticed that the long-haired, black-clad
look Billy cultivated during his run as champ is practically a Movie Villain
costume), and the people around them are alternately fascinating, sincere
and a little scary.
It's a mystery to me why,
in our reality TV era, documentaries like The King of Kong aren't
more popular (the failure of Murderball will never cease to amaze
me). But if you've got a taste for a classic underdog story and need
something to reinforce the idea that sometimes nice guys do finish first,
you really should check it out. And, of course, it wouldn't hurt
if you've spent a few hours of your life trying to get a little Italian
guy up ladders past rolling barrels and fireballs. |
