The risible history of pinball regulations is retold in Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game. If you can sit through a cliché script and writers beating you over the head with a dozen callbacks and motifs—quite a few for a movie with about a 90-minute runtime—you’ll learn about a strange regulation of a popular game, its origins, and how it was reformed.
The film is confusingly set up as an actor-portrayal of a documentary featuring a depiction of the modern-day Roger Sharpe—the pinball player, author, and activist who challenged New York City regulations against the game. But the film also features an actor-portrayal of the past and younger Sharpe, chronicling his efforts to rest the pinball bans. (This reviewer, at least, couldn’t initially tell that the portrayal of the older Sharpe wasn’t the real Sharpe.) This creative choice seemed to fail, not just because of any confusion, but because of its jarring effect on the storytelling. Towards the end, he even clarifies some creative liberties taken by the movie, playing up the faux-documentary feel.
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