King of Kong

When exploring the world of gaming and gamers, it’s easy to adopt a somewhat dismissive or disdainful tack.  To non-gamers, people of the gaming community can come across as pathetic losers who are unsettlingly detached from reality.  It would be seem natural for a documentary about hard-core gamers to approach the material with a similarly condescending tone.  Such a film could possibly fall into what I like to call the “’Trekkies’ trap”.  I actually just made that term up, but you know what I mean.

King of Kong treads this fine line between celebrating its subjects and making fun of them.  The film focuses on Steve Wiebe, a man whose confidence is slowly being sapped out of him by the many disappointments that life throws at him.  In an attempt to be the best at something and regain his manhood, Wiebe takes up Donkey Kong.  Thus, he is sucked into the seedy underground world of competitive arcade gaming.  The antagonist in the story is Billy Mitchell, the reigning Donkey Kong champion and all around sleaze.  The two men become arch-nemesii of sorts and spend the film gunning for the high score.    

The film treats Wiebe’s world record attempt as a shot at redemption for him.  His gaming interests are a healthy way of gaining the confidence that he needs to live his life.  Billy Mitchell’s gaming interests, on the other hand, are presented as negative and somewhat pathetic.  Billy Mitchell plays because he’s an egomaniacal sociopath. While Wiebe’s motivations are rooted in his desires to overcome real insecurities, Mitchell’s only desire seems to be to dominate his own sad little world full of tacky ties and nasty hot wing sauce.  That’s the difference that the film finds between the two men.  One of the key exchanges in the film occurs when the Wiebe family is driving cross-country to attend a gaming convention in a sad little arcade.  Steve is discussing with his daughter the possibility of him setting a new word record score in Donkey Kong.  His daughter makes an offhand remark about how people sometimes waste their lives trying to set records.  I think this scene was included as a sort of underlying thesis.  Wiebe manages to have a somewhat firm grip on reality, but the rest of the gamers that the film comes in contact with are a sad bunch.  Despite its so-called inspiring story, I felt a little depressed and exasperated by the end of this film.  I also felt bad for Wiebe’s wife.