The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (Dvd) - Ashleigh

Ever since Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine (2002) documentaries have had a resurgence in popularity. Super Size Me (2004), March of the Penguins (2005), An Inconvenient Truth (2006) have all ridden this wave to fame and fortune. But all of these movies, excluding March of the Penguins, have been reviled as they have been revered, with naysayers and voices of decent crying charlatan and hoax at the filmmakers and their subjects. I say this only to put you in the frame of mind I was in when starting this film. I was looking for the director, Seth Gordon, to play on my preconceived notions (of what, I’m not sure, but documentarians lie right? They show us only half the truth - don’t they? They show us only what they want us to see - right?)

Billy Mitchell, the long lost brother of Wolf from American Gladiators, is the world champion of Donkey Kong. His record of 874,200 in 1982 is the best in the world (actually this is a lie; in 2000 Tim Sczerby obtained 879,200, the current record at the making of this film.) But Billy is also a world class villain. There is no documentary trick to make this guy into any more of an ass than he is. He is simply an arrogant, egotistical – gamer? In Billy’s own words, “Well, maybe they'd like it if I lose. I gotta try losing sometime.” The documentary shows very little of his family life, it contains damning footage of him being overly aggressive in his business practices, and he is a no-show in the one chance the documentary gives him to defend himself. But, he is the villain and the documentarian shows this with a lot of help from Billy.

Steve Wiebe is our hero. He is a nice guy who is dragged into the sorted world of competitive gaming and despite the pressure and upsets he maintains his nice guy persona. Steve is often overlooked, he takes second place in everything, and was recently let go from his job when the movie starts (he becomes a teacher while filming, I can’t think of nobler profession). You can’t dream of a better guy to take on the likes of Billy “Wolf” Mitchell.

The movie sets up that Steve beats Billy score, on videotape, one night in his garage and sends it to Twin Galaxies, the retro gaming record holders and friends of Billy. Steve is given the record and a small amount of fame in his local town. But then referees from Twin Galaxies come out to Steve’s town and look at his machine and claim that the machine is tampered with and thus the score is revoked, giving Billy the record back. (Actually this is a lie; Wiebe held the high score at the moment his score was revoked, and it reverted back to Steve’s high score.) Steve then goes out to FunSpot, a Retro gaming Mecca, to beat the score live and compete against Billy face to face. Billy sends a videotape. Steve beats Billy’s score live (the now reigning live high score), but Billy’s videotape, a scrambled mess of glitches and odd time stops, shows Billy reaching over a million points and Steve’s achievement is forgotten. In this moment the movie shines showing Steve’s everyman defeat against the cogs of the Twin Galaxies and Billy’s suspect tape. Steve’s plight is tangible at this moment as he is helpless to defeat the genius of Billy’s villainy. I won’t go into any more detail here.
This documentary certainly tries its hardest to make you root for Steve and fear and hate Billy. And even when I knew I was being shown half-truths and pandering I still rooted for Steve. You can’t help it. Billy is a villain without the cameras. Steve is a good guy without Donkey Kong. While I understood Steve’s emotional, family loving character could have been a construct of the filmmaker; it’d be hard to fake. And while Billy’s character could have been selective quotes and sharp edits; it’d be hard to fake.

8 out of 10: A fantastic underdog tale that will unexpectedly draw you in.