Mark Reviews Movies: PINBALL: THE MAN WHO SAVED THE GAME

Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game, Vertical Entertainment

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 16, 2023

Is this really a story worth telling? That seems to be part of the gag of the cleverly jokey but admirably sincere Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game. It's a biography of Roger Sharpe, a writer and game designer whose main claim to some fame is that he helped to end a citywide ban on pinball games in New York City. In theory, that also means he aided in making pinball legal in other cities and places across the United States where the games had been outlawed. It's some kind of accomplishment, to be sure, but as a piece of history, it's barely a footnote.

The Sharpe of this movie seems to understand that, too. That level of self-awareness and self-critique makes the debut feature of writers/directors Austin and Meredith Bragg, credited as the Bragg Brothers, a lot more thoughtful—and a bit more fun—than this story probably has any right to be.

The Braggs are actually doing quite a bit with this seemingly niche story. Some of it is appropriately specific to the subject of pinball, such as offering a history of the game and the legal challenges it faced for several decades. Most of it, though, is in how the filmmakers toy with the conventions of traditional biographical movies, while also offering up characters, situations, and relationships that comes across as genuine in spite of the movie's comical attitude.

Take the narrative's framing device, which sees a modern-day Roger, played by Dennis Boutsikaris, being interviewed by unseen filmmakers for a documentary/dramatization of his life. They want to focus on the man's Big Moment, of course, when Roger stood up to city hall in order to prove that pinball wasn't some mob-run scam designed to steal kids' lunch money. The tone of Boutskikaris' performance here is as vital as the narrative trickery, because we can tell right from the start that the older Roger is dismissive of what would seem to be his greatest accomplishment in life. His story becomes less about that and more about everything else—much to the impatience and irritation of the filmmakers.

Most of the story, though, takes place in mid-1970s New York, where a 25-year-old Roger (Mike Faist) has arrived after attending college in Wisconsin, finds himself suddenly divorced and unemployed in a cramped apartment without any furniture (His former in-laws owned the store where it came from), and begins a struggle to find any writing gig that could pay the bills. In the process of wandering around the city looking for and failing at job interviews, the younger Roger takes some solace in a particular pinball game that he used to play in college. That the machine is located inside an adult bookstore doesn't strike him as odd, because his naïve, bushy-mustachioed self is completely unaware of the legal issues surrounding the game.

He's naïve about a lot, of course, and Faist, a promising actor on the rise at this point, is great here, channeling an innocent, nerdy energy that makes the younger Roger immediately sympathetic, specifically funny, and awkwardly charming. That's a necessity. For all of the build-up to the climactic showdown at city hall, the film really is about Roger struggling with his budding career and his plans for the future, looking for some kind of comfort and control in the few places a person can get it—such as in front of a pinball machine.

The focus on the character is sharp, and from there, the filmmakers do take us through the history of pinball—its origins during the Great Depression and the evolution of features we would take for granted—and of its banning in New York—with a particular amount of ire aimed at former mayor Fiorello La Guardia for his misguided moralizing (The airport named after him, the older Roger notes in one of his assorted interruptions, was built on an old amusement park, further solidifying how much the guy hated fun). Roger eventually decides to write a book about pinball, giving us more history and a real understanding of the passion behind the game.

For all of this, though, the film's real heart comes from an unexpectedly considered and touching romance between Roger and Ellen (Crystal Reed), a single mother whom our protagonist meets in an elevator. The two start dating, with Ellen making sure that Roger knows what she wants from any kind of romantic entanglement after a messy divorce and with an 11-year-old son (played by Christopher Convery) at home.

The relationship develops naturally, sweetly, and honestly in a way that's rather unexpected, and the film itself makes certain we appreciate how it's going out of the way to ensure that happens within this tale. The older Roger becomes lost in the early stages—the joys and the challenges—of the relationship, and yes, it's probably a bit obvious and cheesy to note that we're watching the man really figure out what matters in life. It doesn't matter when the characters, performances, and bond within that story are as authentic and heartfelt as they are here.

This is a real charmer of a film—strange, a bit silly, and filled with some clever humor that cuts at biographical conventions but, above all else, sincere when it comes to the core elements of its storytelling. Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game may start off by dramatizing a footnote of a unique part of history, but in becoming less about that, it becomes more as a story.

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