As someone who loved to play pinball as a kid (a 22-year-old getting ready to graduate college and still playing it late into the night in local university barrooms counts as a "kid," right?), you didn't have to tell me the appeal was the sense of control it gave you over the risks that you took to take advantage of the opportunities that you were given and resulting rewards that you could reap. Just like "in real life"! The titular character in this highly unusual and entertaining biographical movie, Roger Sharpe, appears in its main story as a 25-year-old just getting started writing in NYC for "Gentlemen's Quarterly" back in the 1970s. He also appears as the much older, omniscient narrator breaking the "fourth wall" here in the present day. Instead of telling the tale of how a barely comprehensible 35-year ban on pinball (as a mob-controlled "gambling device," of all things) would come to be lifted, modern-day Roger wants to emphasize the life-long love story with artist and single mom Ellen that started in the elevator outside the GQ editorial offices and would ultimately change his life/outlook on marriage and family. As good as Mike Faist is as Roger, Crystal Reed is that much better as Ellen. The fact that one of her parents is Native American and the other Polish may help explain her striking multicultural beauty, but she is also a very compelling actress here. Her reaction to the thoroughly odd personality of Roger and even odder handlebar mustache is just to be kinda charmed by his awkwardness. As a thoroughly odd fellow myself, with a uniquely bushy goatee, I truly appreciated all of this. So I rate this film a 7/10 (7.5, if I could give halfs).
Review of Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game
