You know what I hate? The internet. Not all of the internet, the bits with the ladies with no clothes on is good. However, the bits where you get ‘reviews’ from is bad. Take Marty Supreme for example; A24 kept reposting people saying it was the ‘greatest movie of all time!’ This puts a nugget in your head, and you can’t shake it.
Now that I have seen Marty Supreme, I can say it is a good movie, but not the GOAT.
The movie stars Timothee Chaletmaid, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odesa A’zion, Larry ‘Ratso’ Sloman, Ralph Colucci, Tyler the Creator (yes, that’s his name), and Luke Manley. Josh Safdie directs, and we will come back to him later.
The Story
Marty Supreme isn’t about ping pong; it has ping pong in it.
Marty Mauser, a young man with a dream no one respects, goes to hell and back in pursuit of greatness.
In a nutshell, it’s the 1950s in New York, and Marty (Charlamagne) works in a shoe shop, but his dream is to be a ping pong champion. The first act sets up how he should be the world champ, but he misses the opportunity.
The second act has literally no ping pong in it; it’s basically Marty trying to get his life in order to get to the next big tournament in Japan. Everything that can go wrong, goes wrong.
The third act goes back to ping pong and is pretty intense. I won’t spoil the rest of it.
The Cast
I will start by saying everyone in this is excellent. Marty Supreme is a very ‘real’ movie, with brutally intense characters. Charliemay is brilliant in this movie. He completely buries himself in the roll and it really shows. He really goes above and beyond to give a career-defining performance. I know that sounds cheesy, but honestly, he is excellent.
Gwyneth Paltrow is also very good. I know she’s a bit ‘fruit of the loom’ in real life; you know, selling candles that smell of her farts or something. However, when she’s given a good role, she can act. Weirdly, she’s given almost the same role as Rene Russo from Nightcrawler, which I will come back to later.
With the rest of the cast, it’s all the same; there isn’t a character you don’t believe in. The director really pushes everyone to their limit in Marty Supreme, and this is to be celebrated. However, this comes with a ‘but’.
The Direction
Credit where credit is due, Safdie does an amazing job, making Marty Supreme a ‘real’ movie. The style of direction is all ‘dirty’ and real, like you can almost smell how bad the world is.
Most of it is handheld camera work and is composed of really great photography. The camera isn’t just placed in the general direction of the actors; it sweeps through the crowds, and you are ‘there’. This isn’t a green-screen, clean movie, like we are used to with most superhero movies.
However, something struck me about halfway through Marty Supreme.
Marty’s Uncut Gems
Safdie directed Uncut Gems with Adam Sandler. Now, I’m not a huge fan of Uncut Gems. I remember seeing it, but not really liking it. That’s not to say it isn’t a great movie, but I just didn’t “get” it. I might have watched it and not been in the correct headspace for it; maybe it was my time of the month.
The story for Uncut Gems is:
With his debts mounting and angry collectors closing in, a fast-talking New York City jeweller risks everything in hope of staying afloat and alive.
This is basically the second act of Marty Supreme. Marty is running around, he’s fast talking and a liar, making deals, doing hustles, and doing everything he can to get the money to get to Japan. Just change ‘jeweller’ to ‘ping pong player’, and you’re golden.
This was a bit of a shame, and I’m guessing the fans, who A24 retweeted, have never seen Uncut Gems.
Overall
Marty Supreme is a very good movie; it stands head and shoulders above the slop we’ve seen over the past 12 months. The bad news is that it’s just not very original, not if you’ve seen Uncut Gems.
Ultimately, the story is boring; some guy wants to play ping pong. We’ve seen Forest Gump, the only difference is that Forest was an idiot and Marty is clever. Weirdly, I watched Nightcrawler, with Jake Gyllenhaal, a day or so ago. Again, it’s pretty much the same thing: a wise talking guy trying to break into TV news.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Nightcrawler, and Gyllenhaal is amazing in it, but watching Marty Supreme, just after it, took the edge off. I know that’s not the director’s fault, but it’s the same types of character, again, just like Sandler in Uncut Gems and the aforementioned Rene Russo in Nightcrawler.
The soundtrack is really good, taking some classic 80s hits and putting them over the top of a movie from the 1950s, which really works. Although it also seems to be something A24 movies have done more than once.
This is a good movie, and it is worth watching, just don’t expect it to be quite as groundbreaking as the breathless reviews would have you believe.
I’m giving Marty Supreme a solid 3 out of 5. If A24 hadn’t retweeted how amazing it was quite so much, while ignoring that it’s very similar to Uncut Gems, they might get more mileage from me.
Also, I would have liked to have seen more ping pong in the second act.
Marty Supreme is on VoD.
