Marty Supreme

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

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Josh Safdie (“Uncut Gems”) helms the vividly existential sports story “Marty Supreme,” very loosely based on the late table tennis champion Marty Reisman. The narrative, though hectic, boasts an extraordinary performance by Timothée Chalamet and carries first rate suspense illustrative of a “dog eat dog” New York City in the 1950s. The charged, intense, and colorful film possesses a manic verve both sinister and joyful by turns.

Marty Mauser (Chalamet) is a young shoe salesman in the city. He has no money and his dream is to be a table tennis champion.

Marty goes to his boss to get paid $700 but the boss refuses, citing Marty being a bad employee.

Marty pulls a gun on a fellow worker, forcing him to open the safe.

Then Marty goes to a club where he purposely loses to gain a sympathetic edge only later to win on higher bets.

Marty’s peril increases when he is with his friend Wally (Tyler, the Creator) and they enrage a group of rival table tennis players. Marty throws gasoline on them with disastrous results. A gas station blows up and a dog escapes into their cab belonging to a scary gangster Ezra (Abel Ferrara). Somehow Marty escapes unharmed but with the evil eye over his head.

All the while, Marty is trying to the point of blood and pained agony worthy of an Eli Roth torture film to make enough money to go to Japan for a championship tournament.

To make matters worse his friend Rachel (Odessa A’zion) is pregnant with Marty’s child and concocts a scheme to make money on Ezra’s dog with no credible claims.

Last but not least, tycoon Milton Rockwell (Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank) has had enough of Marty’s Shenanigans and wants to turn him submissive and humiliate him.

Marty escapes death about as many times in the film as James Bond. One sequence in particular is a pedestrian version of “The French Connection.”

Even a glittering Gwyneth Paltrow plays a starlet who is wooed by the scrappy athlete.

The film is chock full of cameos including an unrecognizable Penn Jillette (from magician team Penn and Teller) and Fran Drescher as Marty’s mother.

The pièce de résistance is a table match between Marty and the stoic Endo (Koto Kawaguchi) a deaf table tennis player. This sequence is nail biting riveting suspense reminiscent of films like “Rocky” and “Breaking Away” (1979).

This film has the dark claustrophobic grit of “Midnight Cowboy” and “Marathon Man” but gives away to a zany and celebratory spirit, the urban essence of what is involved in not giving up. This is blood and guts dressed in a polyester shirt.

Write Ian at ianfree11@yahoo.com