Pinball movie review 2023

"Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game” is a documentary film by Austin and Meredith Bragg that narrates a story of a forgotten history, bizarre, and ridiculous more than urgent and unjust. The film tells the story of Roger Sharpe, who overturned the decades-long ban on pinball machines in New York City in 1976. However, Sharpe views this as a “footnote” and not a legacy. The film doesn't burden pinball machines with more meaning than they can stand, and it is strictly low stakes. The film sets up a faux-documentary style, with the older Roger narrating his own story, showing up in flashbacks alongside his younger self and even interrupting scenes to correct the director's “interpretation.”

The young Roger, played by Mike Faist, discovers the joys of pinball while a student at the University of Wisconsin. He gets married, divorced, fired, and moves to New York with dreams of being a writer. At random, he discovers a pinball machine in the lobby of a peep show. He learns that pinball, which he pursued shamelessly back in Wisconsin, is illegal in New York City due to a vendetta against the machines by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. If you lived in New York City and wanted to play a legal game of pinball, you had to drive to New Jersey. Roger decides to write about it for GQ, which he then expands into a book. He tracks down the original manufacturers to interview them, gathering evidence for the eventual showdown in 1976.

Alongside all this pinball activity is the romance with Ellen, played by Crystal Reed, a single mother, working as a secretary, painting at night, cautious about letting men into her life, and very upfront with Roger about what she wants, needs, and expects. She wants to be married and have a father for her 11-year-old son. If Roger isn't up for all of that, then it would be best to just stop now. Roger gets it, and the three become a makeshift little family. The chemistry between the two leads is believable and of the everyday regular-person variety. Their scenes together are played with attention to detail, and Ellen is fleshed out as much as Roger, if not more.

Mike Faist is no stranger to Broadway, having made his debut in 2011's "Newsies." However, it was his performance in "Dear Evan Hansen" and as the dead Connor Murphy that made him a star. He was nominated for a Tony Award, and his charisma is evident in his performance in "Pinball." The film gives Faist a chance to hold the center of a film, and he does so admirably.

When the offscreen "director" keeps interrupting the love story, suggesting Roger is getting "distracted," it's part of the ongoing joke of the film, the push-pull between the "director" and his subject. But it's also a set-up that pays off in the final moments of the film. Pinball is why we're all here, but falling in love is not a distraction. What seems to be a minor story about pinball is also a love story that adds layers to the documentary.

The backstory of the film is told in newsreel-type fragments, with scenes of NYPD doing "raids," smashing pinball machines on the streets, newspaper headlines, and LaGuardia giving press conferences, all presented like it's Chicago fighting organized crime in the 1920s. The absurdity of the situation is played up, making for an entertaining watch. The film doesn't try to be more than it is, and that's part of its charm.

"Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game" - A Footnote Story of Love and Rebellion.feel goog movie.