Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme, released last year and now available on Amazon Prime, is ostensibly about the American ping pong star Marty Reisman. It pays far more attention to his inclinations as a hustler rather than to his talent as an athlete. This will come as no surprise to those who are familiar with his memoir, The Money Player: The Confessions of America’s Greatest Table Tennis Champion and Hustler, upon which this drama is based.

Not having read his book, I assumed that it would highlight his activities as a table tennis pro. Safdie focuses instead on his skills as a showman, which, I admit, was a source of disappointment to me. What I hoped to watch was a movie about an outstanding athlete perfecting his skills.

The late Reisman, who was often referred to as “the needle” due to his slender physique,........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)