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The dilemma faced when asked to review Foos:
Be The Greatest was two-fold. As a foosball player,
how do I objectively review a film that deals in an area
where the emotional investment runs deep? But it's not
just an emotional investment; it's also an investment in
time. It's the time spent practicing as well as vacation time taken
to travel and play in tournaments. And of course there's
the financial investment it takes to compete. Is it
possible to even be objective? The other dilemma I faced
is that of a movie lover where documentaries are a
favorite genre. The difficulty comes in the need to
separate the participant from the observer, to step back
from the table and look at what makes up the sport of
table soccer. Several viewings later, I still find it
difficult to make the needed separation.
Documentaries accomplish their task when
we not only learn something but also allow the viewer to
make their own emotional investment. When viewed through
the eyes of a foosball enthusiast, the film covers both
sides nicely. Viewed from the point of view of your
average filmgoer however and the film lists decidedly
towards the educational, often leaving the viewer waiting
to make that initial deposit towards actually caring about the
subject.
This isn't to say that Foos: Be The
Greatest doesn’t do its job; far from it. As a
first time effort, Director Robert Ismert isn't shy about
showing his enthusiasm for the game and the history of
foosball and gives a thorough and informative chronology,
treating his interview subjects with respect as
competitors and in some cases as true sports pioneers. It
again comes back to the emotional investment. A filmmaker
without that investment could find it easy to treat the
work as mockumentary. Through interviews and a huge
photo archive, Ismert takes us from what started as
a small business venture in the late 60's to a
full-fledged sport with a million dollar professional
tour; its fall and eventual resurgence.
As the film begins, Ismert introduces us
to his main "characters". And there is no lack
of characters here. Foos: Be The Greatest opens by
introducing us to two players at opposite ends of the
spectrum. We meet Scott Moreland, a Dallas area man who's
been playing foosball since the early seventies and
continues to play despite the difficulties of dealing with
Multiple Sclerosis. Resigned to having to play sitting
down, he's a man that seems to maintain his humor and a
positive outlook regardless of the circumstances he faces
and is determined never to quit playing the game. Along
the way though, Scott's story gets lost for a good part of
the movie, finally returning towards the end when we see
him arriving home from a tournament late at night. He
leaves no question that he's ready to do it all over again
the next night.
We are also introduced to perhaps
foosball's most infamous player, Johnny Horton. Those
who've played foosball seriously for any length of time
have heard stories of the natural talent and fiery persona
that Horton possesses. They've also heard stories of the
behavior that resulted in more than one "life-time
ban" from the professional foosball tour.
The interviews with Horton are extensive
and many times very revealing. He tells of a difficult,
abusive childhood, of quitting school to play foosball and
being raised by his grandmother who at one point tells
him, "If you don't win, don't come home". We
also get to see an uncharacteristically humble, contrite
Horton retelling the circumstances of his return from
exile and ultimately his latest fall from foosball grace.
It's an all too brief but very telling glimpse of what
lies beneath the manic storytelling and unapologetic
bravado.
Foos: Be The Greatest works best when it sticks to
foosball history. Along the way we're introduced to many
of the people who turned a simple bar game into what Sports
Illustrated once described as "a first-class
professional sport". The recollections of Lee Peppard
tell the story of Tournament Soccer's rapid rise
and even more precipitous fall. He is presented as a man
who was a dreamer equal to those players who pursued fame
and fortune on what he refers to as "the
product". He offers insight into the successes and is
forthright in pointing out mistakes that ultimately cost
him dearly.
Peppard's perspective relates primarily
the business side of foosball. Serving as the
counterweight to that is Hall of Fame player Johnny
Lott.
Like Horton, Lott seems to display a predilection for the
sound of his own voice. In one segment he provides a vivid
description of foosball's first big-money event at
Denver's Elitch Gardens in 1974. Lott concludes the
tale with the admission that he never actually went to the
event but was instead at home suffering from
mononucleosis. It's not stated outright, but it's made clear that Lott was in no
small way instrumental in the final demise of Tournament
Soccer. In a bit of an ironic twist, we are told at
the end of the film that Lott and Peppard have once again
united to produce a new brand of foosball table.
With a running time well over 2 hours, Foos:
Be The Greatest suffers most from confining its
storytelling to too few people. We hear too much Lott and
not enough from people like Todd Loffredo who could have
served perfectly as the bridge spanning from foosball's
golden era to the game of today. Yes, we hear from several of the
early greats such as Gary Pfeil and
Doug
Furry but there
is no mention of players like Terry Moore who was arguably
the most dominant player of the 1990's. In fact, very
little is shown of foosball after 2001 where
second-generation players like Tony Spredeman and
Billy
Pappas are now beginning to dominate the sport.
The biggest question is whether this film
will find an audience outside the
confines of the foosball world. Certainly the film's
biggest appeal will be to the serious foosball player and
especially those players in their mid-forties who like to
tell the modern generation of players how big the game was
way back when and who long for it to again be that way.
Foos: Be The Greatest could easily shed at least a
half hour and still tell a good story, but true foosball
aficionados are an obsessive lot and wouldn't have it any
other way. More foosball is never enough.
~ Brad Anderson ~
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