Marty Supreme

I'm never rooting for Marty Mauser, and, for me, that limits how far Marty Supreme can reach (despite the talented filmmaking involved) as I have no stake in its destination. Inspired by the life of Marty Reisman, Timothée Chalamet stars as two-bit con-artist and aspiring ping-pong champion Marty Mauser. One of the best players in a sport largely ignored in the United States, our part-time shoe salesman cons and schemes on ways to improve his "Marty Supreme" brand while struggling to find the financing to make it to the World Table Tennis Championships in Japan.

A sports movie that's not really a sports movie but still needs to be a sports movie for its last act to play out, our would-be hero is far from one. Much like his brother Benny's The Smashing Machine from earlier this year, co-writer/director Josh Safdie centers his film around a completely self-absorbed character hoping Marty's antics will be amusing enough for us not to focus on the amount of destruction left in his wake.

Despite being a horrible little shit, Marty's journey is far from boring and there's certainly style to spare including Gwyneth Paltrow and Odessa A'zion as potential love interests and Kevin O'Leary as businessman who Marty, despite his disdain, finds himself in desperate need of. We also get Luke Manley and Tyler the Creator to provide examples of how Marty treats his friends.

There's certainly an absurdist flair to the script which isn't afraid to go to dark places to find its humor when one of Marty's schemes inevitably backfires. You can also keep an eye out for filmmaker Abel Ferrara in an unexpected turn to the Marty's chaotic journey. This along with the 50s style and the table tennis scenes (which turn out to be more cinematic than you might expect, albeit in short bursts) flushes out an interesting, and often seedy, world of Marty Supreme.

However, as the end of the film looms we're still left with a character we've been given no reason to root for which creates a vacuum in place of the necessary tension needed to sell the climax and epilogue of Marty's journey.

Marty isn't a flawed plucky underdog nor do we ever see him shown as the invincible talent of his own imagination needing to be humbled. I'm not rooting for Marty Mauser, but he's also no great villain who I'm given reason to root aginst (as most of the people standing in his way aren't any better). I'm just a witness to immaculately staged, and sometimes horrifically wacky, events surrounding a guy who is never half the man he believes himself to be, and, despite what the epilogue attempts to suggest, likely ever will be.

• Title: Marty Supreme
• IMDb: link