Posted: 09/29/2007

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

(2007)

by Matt Wedge

Disappointed with this summer’s crop of blockbusters? Didn’t get the excitement you expected from Spider-Man 3 or Transformers? Frustrated with derivative characters that look like they stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine? Boy, do I have the movie for you. What’s the catch? It’s a documentary about a bunch of juvenile men who are obsessed with who will break the world record Donkey Kong score. If this doesn’t turn you off, read on. If you can’t get past how ridiculous the premise is, well, I guess you’re just going to miss out on the best David vs. Goliath story put to film in recent memory.

Still with me? Good. Now, let’s get down to business.

Billy Mitchell looks and acts like a character out of a Christopher Guest mockumentary. He sports a perfectly blow-dried super-mullet, with never a hair out of place, and a neatly trimmed beard that frames a smile full of perfect teeth. He runs a successful hot sauce business (no kidding), is married to a woman who looks like a porn star, with more silicone in her body than actual tissue (still not kidding), and just happens to hold several high scores in classic arcade games. He is so cocky and proud of it that he comes across like a pro wrestling villain.

Steve Wiebe is a man desperately in need of a win. He has recently been laid off from his job, has found new employment as a middle school science teacher where he works 12- to 14- hour days, and just has a general feeling of being the guy who always came in second place. We learn that he pitched his high school baseball team to the Washington state finals, only to crack under the pressure and lose the big game. He was a promising musician but gave that up because he was just too shy to perform onstage. While he has a lovely wife and two ridiculously cute children, his friends and family understand that his life will never be complete until he can say that he was the best at just one thing. Anything.

And the thing he has his sights set on? Billy Mitchell’s Donkey Kong record.

Director Seth Gordon’s funny and surprisingly emotional documentary not only presents us with Steve’s quest to be the greatest Donkey Kong player of all time, but also the petty and sometimes questionable tactics Billy resorts to in an effort to protect his record. In following the story, Gordon also drops the audience into the bizarre world of a group of people who not only continue to play arcade games that were introduced in the early ’80s, but also serve as the official governing body that decide what conditions make a record performance official.

People like Walter Day, who runs Twin Galaxies, the official record-keeping organization that supplies information on classic video games to The Guinness Book of World Records. Walter is an intense man who looks like he could be anywhere between 50 and 75. He likes to compare gamers to Olympic athletes and is one of the biggest fans of (you guessed it) Billy Mitchell. Also in Billy’s corner are Steve Sanders, a gamer turned lawyer who was one of Billy’s earliest challengers for the Donkey Kong record, and Brian Kuh, Billy’s truly annoying toady, who acts as his eyes and ears as Steve comes closer and closer to breaking Billy’s record. All of these men do their best to derail Steve’s quest and, through their actions, cast further doubt on Billy’s claim to be the rightful holder of the record.

If this all sounds silly and childish, it could have been in the hands of a lesser filmmaker. But Gordon understands that this is serious business to those involved and (with the exception of some ironically used songs on the soundtrack) rarely goes out of his way to make them look foolish. They handle that pretty well on their own.

Despite the seemingly trivial nature of the competition, The King of Kong manages to present one of the most entertaining and enthralling portraits of competitive nature, the toll that nature takes on those involved, and the devious methods some will use to come out on top. I hate to make blanket statements, but full of honestly earned suspense, laughs, and yes, even tears, this is one of the best films of the year.

Matt Wedge is a writer and film reviewer in Chicago.

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