Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Steve Wiebe
Billy Mitchell
Walter Day
Directed By:
Seth Gordon
I watched The King Of Kong on a friend's recommendation. It's on YouTube, if anybody's interested. It's a 2007 documentary about Steve Wiebe's record-breaking score of Donkey Kong (you know, the old Donkey Kong where you dodge barrels?) and Billy Mitchell's subsequent reaction. And the shenanigans that ensued. It's an interesting and educative watch, but it fails at one very simple principle of documentary: honesty. Who's guilty of that? That's where the fun starts.
The director sets this very "pro-wrestling" mood of face (or good guy, Wiebe) and hell (or bad guy, Mitchell). Wiebe beats the record of Mitchell, who sends "goons" (for a lack of a better term) at his house to check out his machine. They find that the motherboard inside the machine belongs to Roy Schildt, a Mitchell "nemesis" that aches for glory and therefore the record is voided. But Wiebe goes to a public arcade and beats Mitchell's score again, only to be bested the same night by a very fishy score that Mitchell provided through video tape. The thing jumped, skipped, it's a wonder why it even got considered for the record. But Walter Day, the record-keeper accepted the tape and cleared the record. You'll have to see for yourself how it ends though.
Now, nothing in life is so black and white. Mitchell looks like a prick that would do anything to keep the dominant image he enforced on the gaming world and he might be (I've interviewed people before, I know a thing or two about lack of honesty), but the documentary is very happy to stay with this image and not go any further. Maybe Billy Mitchell was reluctant about his participations to the whole thing, I don't know, but it's evident that this type of behavior hides emotional problems that go a lot deeper. It's unhealthy enough to pursue something as tiny and devoid of sense as a video game score, it's even unhealthier to have an unhealthy attitude about it.
I couldn't help but find this movie very sad. Both men, Wiebe and Mitchell seemed to validate their existence through the record setting to outdated and barely even played video games. They both have found the tiniest place where they could shine and be the best, and the drama (from Mitchell's perspective) is to have to reassess this accomplishment that defines him as a person. It's a pain to see him dodge Wiebe, who's so eager to compete (probably as eager as Mitchell was 25 years ago) and even went up to Florida, only to see his challenge turned down by a very arrogant Mitchell.
The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters is a great piece on video game and geek culture, but it's not honest. I'm not sure who is to blame for this. Probably Billy Mitchell more than the director Seth Gordon. It's to bet we'll never get an accurate portrait of who Billy Mitchell really is because Wiebe and him are still battling over that Kong title, the latest score being set in August of 2010. It's a damn shame because Billy Mitchell is such an iconic figure of video game. He's growing older, his reflexes are going downhill and he owes himself a better send off than that. I'm sure there's a better man behind that crappy persona he made for himself. The King Of Kong is just documentary enough to teach you something and just staged enough to spark heated debates. In that regard, it's a success.
SCORE: 84%
