DVD available at Amazon.com
Director:
Chris Browne
Featuring:
Walter Ray Williams, Jr.
Pete Weber
Wayne Webb
Chris Barnes
Magnolia Films presents A League of Ordinary Gentlemen. Running time: 93 minutes. Rated R (for language). Available on DVD: March 21, 2006.
The movie:
60 feet by 42 inches. These two numbers mean nothing until you know they are the dimensions of a patch of wood. The wood is slick with 10 little pins at the end. The idea is to knock all pins down with a sixteen-pound ball. It’s a game called bowling. You don’t have to be the biggest, the fastest or the strongest to bowl. Bowling is a game in which anybody can play.
A League of Ordinary Gentlemen is a documentary about the sport, detailing the rise and fall and rise again of the PBA.
Forty-eight years ago, in 1958, a man by the name of Eddie Elias created the Professional Bowling Association at a Syracuse hotel. He convinced 33 top bowlers to each pay fifty dollars. The money went into a communal pot that helped fund the PBA in its infancy. Four years later, ABC began televising the Professional bowler’s Tour. It would be a Saturday mainstay for the next 35 years.
With the advent of new technologies, and more channels to watch, the sport of bowling was losing interest. While the sport reached its zenith, as far as popularity goes, in the seventies and eighties, by the 1990’s it was in a tailspin, losing money.
What once was old is new again. Flash forward to the new millennium. Three former Microsoft executives looked to revive the sport of pins. Purchasing the PBA for five million dollars they hired Nike’s Director of Global Sports Marketing, Steve Miller, to jumpstart the league. Watching Miller opine to the bowlers about the business at hand, this man knows what he’s talking about. To him, it’s all about perception. Greater interest means more advertising revenue. More ad revenue equates to better success.
Documentary filmmaker Chris Browne attempts to give an overview of the sport as a whole. But like all movies, characters are needed. A League of Ordinary Gentleman has four men of interest: Walter Ray Williams, Jr., Pete Weber, Wayne Webb, and Chris Barnes. Each man is unique and brings something different to the film.
Describing Walter Ray Williams would be like describing a gunslinger in the Old West. He is the cagey veteran who has won 34 PBA titles. He’s nonchalant when he bowls, offering a swift congratulatory fist when he makes a strike. With regards to other bowlers, Williams doesn’t believe the new-and-improved PBA needs to be this grand spectacle. Still, with a greater emphasis on the pageantry, CEO Steve Miller hopes to attract new sponsors. Simple business philosophy.
Bowler Pete Weber is the polar opposite of Walter Ray. Whereas Williams is casual in his celebrations, Weber resorts to crotch chops. Born into bowling royalty, Pete is the son of legendary bowler Dick Weber. His father’s popularity was immense having bowled in six of the first seven televised tournaments. Arrogant and cocky he may be, Pete Weber is the face of the PBA. He makes the TV circuit on all the sport shows talking about how he’s both a bowler and an entertainer. The biggest influence for his antics: professional wrestling. Too bad the crotch chop is so 1997.
Newcomer Chris Barnes and twenty-plus year veteran Wayne Webb are probably the most interesting stories in the documentary. Webb has had a hard luck life. Having won twenty PBA titles, and earning more than a million dollars in prize money, he gambled most of it away. Joining the pro tour at the age of 18, bowling is the only thing he knows how to do. To quit now would mean to start over. Despondent, Webb has tried to pick up the pieces, and continues to bowl. He is like one of those competitors who don’t want to quit the sport, because he still needs to make a living.
Chris Barnes is the youngest professional in the documentary. Still in his early twenties, Barnes has a loving wife and two babies to take care of. The tour is tough on marriage. Maybe that’s why many of the bowlers are not married. Driving from town to town, tournament to tournament can put a lot of stress on a relationship. Barnes hasn’t veered away from his life as a father. He even admits that if he isn’t successful he will give up the sport of pins and do something else. Hopefully, he doesn’t follow the same path as Webb.
A League of Ordinary Gentlemen is a fun documentary, but nowhere in the same league as another documentary in which a ball is used (Murderball). Unless you are a passionate bowler or love the game, the documentary won’t be well received by most. Chris Browne’s decision to tell the stories of four bowlers and how they correlate is the film’s most interesting aspect. And, in some ways, an allegory for where the sport has been and where it is going.
Score: 6.5/10
The DVD:
THE VIDEO
(Presented in 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen)
Trying to judge the video quality for a documentary is quite a feat. You have to consider the vintage clips used as well as film that is shot on-location. With natural lighting, it’s hard to get the same image each time. Digital video helps, as does shooting in a closed environment – i.e., a bowling alley. The outside scenes, especially at night are rough. The best video comes courtesy of ESPN with their coverage of the new PBA.
Score: 6.5/10
THE AUDIO
(English, Dolby Digital 5.1)
The 5.1 soundtrack does a nice job at presenting Gary Meister’s original music, which helps to tell Wayne Webb’s story, and the sound of the film. With surround sound you get to hear balls striking pins and pins falling down. What more would you expect with a documentary about bowling? The dialogue is alright, but sometimes voices can be soft.
Score: 7/10
SPECIAL FEATURES: This DVD has been brought to you by ESPN!!!
Not all the extras are endorsing the sports network, but features like PBA/ESPN TV Spots or the Dexter Approach: Tips and Techniques help the channel to some free advertising. Because, who wouldn’t want to see ESPN’s Randy Pedersen and his collection of four features of bowling tips?
Other bonus features include the theatrical trailer, advertisements for Magnolia Home Entertainment, and five deleted scenes. Most of the scenes have to do with other individuals who could not be included in the documentary. There’s “SuperFan” Chris Alderucci, the PBA’s #1 Fan; Randy Pederson, again; “Smooth Daddy” Brian Voss who wins a tournament in front of his two sons; and “Tinseltown” RD Miller, who has dreams of being a Hollywood heart throb and reaching that upper echelon of bowling immortality.
The last of the superfluous extras are highlights of the Skills Challenge. Experience bowlers do their own game of basketball’s “horse,” as they try to top themselves with each routine. There’s nothing quite like seeing guys bowling backwards through their legs to get a strike. Now that’s entertainment.
Score: 3.5/10
| InsidePulse’s Ratings for A League of Ordinary Gentlemen | |
