"The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" Review - Written by TonyD

“The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters”
2007
**** out of ****
Director: Seth Gordon
Cast: Steve Wiebe, Billy Mitchell, Walter Day


June 1, 2008. I looked forward to this day for many, many reasons, but not one of them as big as the world television premiere of the documentary “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.” I saw the film for the first time about two months ago, and I wrote about it in a brief review in my Indie Scene column. I was sent a few e-mails by film geeks and video-game geeks, thanking me for praising the film. It is almost like that they were expecting me to praise it…

Okay, now hold on. I just don’t praise ANYTHING. If I praise your film or a film that you want me to praise, there must be certain elements that I like that I can praise. Depending on the type of film, a film should entertaining and exciting or smart and complicated. On a film like “No Country for Old Men,” it should be smart and complicated. I almost shat myself when the film ended like that. A film like “The King of Kong” should be entertaining and exciting.

The funny thing is that while those film geeks and video-game geeks praised my review of the film that I praised, the rest of the people that read the original Indie Scene column probably never saw “The King of Kong.” They probably still haven’t. I’ve seen it three times since that day in April and I don’t regret any of those three times to watch it. Some of the people who don’t even know that I run a kickass website like FilmArcade.net think that I’m nuts for praising a documentary so much.

And if you don’t like it the least bit, then fuck you.

Because it is films like “The King of Kong” to really get me clapping and cheering. I love every little bit of the film so damn much that scenes keep playing back in my head, day after day. I rest my head on a pillow thinking what Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell are doing right now. My mind flashes back to a moment in the film where Steve Wiebe reaches the Donkey Kong kill-screen. Never has a documentary been so entertaining before.

In 1982 in a small town in Iowa, when video-games ruled the world, Billy Mitchell received the high score on Donkey Kong. After being called the best gamer in the world, he began his own restaurant in Hollywood, Florida, started his own brand of hot-sauce, and got to the almighty kill-screen of Pac-Man, something that no one has ever done before. Steve Wiebe, however, hasn’t been so lucky. He could have been a great major league player, but threw out his arm. He then aspired to be a musician, but never had an audience except for his parents. He was laid off of his job. In order to pass the time while he tries to receive his teaching degree, Steve Wiebe buys a Donkey Kong box.

Billy Mitchell held the record for over twenty years… until Steve Wiebe fucking demolishes him, getting up to seven-digits!

Steve Wiebe is now the new talk in the video game world. He came out from no where, and demolished Billy Mitchell’s score. He is a hero of his town, to his friends, family, and students. Billy Mitchell, however, finds something fishy about this guy. He sends some guys to break into his house and take a look at his game board (the little board inside of his box).

Here is when it gets tricky. While snooping around, Brian Kuh (good friend of Billy Mitchell and (at the time) the fifth highest rank in Donkey Kong) finds a package in Steve Wiebe’s garage from no one other than Roy “Mr. Awesome” Schildt. Billy Mitchell and Roy Schildt have had a history together and Roy would like nothing more than to see Billy go down at his own game. By finding this package and finding out that Roy and Steve are associating with each other, Steve’s score is later rejected, and Billy Mitchell’s original high score is still at the top.

Steve Wiebe travels to New Hampshire to go to the FunSpot arcade, where many people are here for the little convention that they have, including Brian Kuh, Walter Day, who is the founder of Twin Galaxies, and Robert Mruczek, the head referee that denied Wiebe’s previous score. While at the FunSpot, he, once again, demolishes Billy Mitchell’s high score again, this time reaching the kill-screen and did it in front of about twenty or thirty people. But Billy has another trick up his sleeve. While he never goes to the FunSpot arcade, he sends over a video-tape of his new Donkey Kong game, which he receives an impressive score about one hundred thousand points higher than Wiebe’s. Though no one comments about the tape but Wiebe, the audience can clearly see that the tape is a fake by looking at the upper left hand corner.

The entire time, we watch Wiebe deal with his emotions after watching all of the hard work go down the drain. Wiebe has obviously committed himself to the game while Billy Mitchell will pull any punches just so his name will be remembered. Truth is, the only real one that is easy to remember is Steve Wiebe. It isn’t because that he is the good guy (which he totally is), but it is because he is the kind of character we can all relate to. No matter which way you push it, he is our hero throughout the entire flick. He’s new to the entire world of gaming and doesn’t know of the conspiracies that lie ahead. He doesn’t even care about bringing them down (like Roy Schildt plans on doing). He just wants to succeed in something.

Billy Mitchell, on the other hand, is the most despicable character that I’ve seen since Hitler. I call Billy a character because, although he’s a real person, it feels like he came out of a chapter in a comic book series. The man doesn’t want success – he needs it to get through. If nothing goes his way, it’s up for his goons to do it for him. He made a name for himself when he never thought about making a name for himself. Now he has everything, and still wants more.

It would be easy to compare Billy Mitchell to Daniel Day-Lewis’s Daniel Plainview, but not even Plainview begged for success that Billy did. When Plainview wanted success, he knew that no one was going to do it for him. He would have to do it himself. As Mitchell had all of his goons to fix his problems, his pompous attitude flowed throughout the film. He would constantly refer to playing under the pressure or playing in front of a live audience, which would be the only ways to prove how great of a gamer someone truly is. It’s kind of funny that Mitchell brings that up because throughout the entire film, we never see him play.

Billy Mitchell is such a coward that he won’t even say hi to Wiebe.

One of the greatest scenes in “The King of Kong” is when we expect to see Billy and Steve together for the first time at Billy’s restaurant. Steve comes in unexpectedly to eat there, and just before Billy starts to pull up in the parking lot, Billy finds out that Steve is eating there. He pulls right away and doesn’t look back. Yes, Steve goes all the way down to Billy’s hometown just to play Billy at a game of Donkey Kong. Billy, for the lack of a better word, is a pussy when it comes to being under pressure.

There have been reports that a lot of the documentary is untrue and disputed. Walter Day talks about it in a little section of his forum by bringing up how Steve held the world record for almost three years while the film was taking place, how Billy and Steve met at CGE 2K4, and how no one ever broken into Steve Wiebe’s home. Now I believe Day in a few of these facts, besides the fact that the guys broke into his home (and the bastards even admitted it on-screen), but it would be hard not to admit that they didn’t want to see Billy Mitchell stay as the Donkey Kong high-scorer.

Billy Mitchell MADE Twin Galaxies. It is no doubt about it. He had a high-score before Galaxies was even thought of, but after his high-score in Pac-Man, they must have thought of Mitchell as being their mascot. It may not be all of Day’s fault (if any), but it sure as hell has to do with some of the Twin Galaxies’ staff, including Robert Mruczek, Brian Kuh, and a guy named Perry (who is also considered one of the greatest gamers of all time). How do I know this? Robert Mruczek, after the events of FunSpot and finally noticing that it was Wiebe all alone that played Donkey Kong and wasn’t a tampered-with board, resigns. Brandon Kuh isn’t seen anymore throughout the film. Perry is in one little scene when he even admits to breaking into Wiebe’s home.

And sure, even I spotted some parts that I questioned being true and untrue. Not all documentaries are truly fictional. There are different sides to every story. Just because you heard one thing doesn’t mean the other person says the other. I’m sure we all heard the same damn thing in grade school as our teachers made us play that annoying ass game Whisper down the Lane. If Seth Gordon did it on purpose and added in the fake scenes just to get a little bit of buzz, sure, I disagree with his actions. But do I think that without making it a little bit fake, would it be worse? Yes, I do. He created two characters that are both likeable and dislikeable. Walter Day is in the middle of the two, but doesn’t really get too involved unless if his name is brought up.

In the end, we find out that Steve Wiebe finally gets the high score of Donkey Kong, but after the film was completed, Billy beat Steve just a bit more. It is a rivalry that is sure to continue for many of years, but one thing is definitely hard to admit – “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters” is one of the most entertaining and cheerful documentaries that I saw on this side of Michael Moore.