Originally published in Verbicide issue #23

Picturehouse/New Line
79 min., dir. by Seth Gordon, with Billy Mitchell, Steve Wiebe, and Walter Day

You know there’s something special about a film when its content is about grown men competing for the top score of a classic arcade game, yet it does not limit its audience to this strange niche. Although there are certainly some individuals I know of who would especially get behind this unusual documentary, I find myself recommending The King Of Kong to just about anyone, video game lover or not.

What better way to prove yourself as a talented filmmaker than to pick such an offbeat topic and transform it into a subject anyone can relate to? And that’s just what director Seth Gordon has done. Sure, he could’ve made a documentary about rock stars. Everyone loves rock stars. Or baseball…it’s America’s pastime. But say the two words, “video games,” and automatically one can’t help but hand it over to the worldwide federation of geeks and nerds. If that was your initial reaction, get ready to swallow your pride as director Gordon is going to make you care about something you probably never imagined you would: the “Donkey Kong” championship.

By presenting the real-life characters as if he were developing them for an epic novel, Gordon introduces us to Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe (pronounced wee-bee). Mitchell is the Elvis of gaming. Having once held several classic arcade game records, the only record yet to be challenged is his Donkey Kong high score. Gained in 1982, no one has ever come close to outdoing his feat in the past 20-plus years. Enter Wiebe, your typical everyday family man who, after getting laid off, decides to spend his newly acquired free time under the glow of a Kong machine in his garage. After a lot of practicing, Weibe gets a chance to be number one at something and Mitchell finds he has a new enemy.

Gordon must have not been able to contain himself when he realized the kind of story he was about to share. Through testimonials from the experts and creative filmmaking effects, Mitchell manifests into the film’s villain. Everyone in his world sucks up to him, claming that he is the best of the best. When no-name Wiebe enters the scene, he becomes the good guy underdog, looked down on by almost everyone he encounters. With a retro ‘80s soundtrack, Gordon has a few laughs poking fun at the film’s buildup to the showdown between these two virtual giants. And with a cast of some of the oddest people living today, even if you aren’t enthralled by the film’s masterfully delivered theme of basic human competitiveness, you’ll enjoy gawking in disbelief at the awkwardness of some people.

Although The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters could easily be written off as a non-serious entertaining picture of 1980s culture, it is much more than that. Gordon uses Wiebe as the ultimate answer to why anyone would bother pursuing what would seem to be such a trivial accomplishment. That answer being: why not? If you’re good at something and you greatly enjoy it, why not take a shot? In the end, Wiebe stands for what all champions represent: if you’re going to do anything, do it right. Had Wiebe been a record-breaking athlete of any kind, he would probably be one of the most highly regarded role models today. After all, when all is said and done, both Pac Man and football are just games. It isn’t important what Wiebe’s competition of choice is, but how he proves himself to be a better man because of it. And isn’t that what being a true champion is all about?