Marty Supreme: Movie Review

Cast: Timothee Chalamet, Kevin O'Leary, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A'Zion, Fran Drescher
Director: Josh Safdie

Not a film to be viewed if you've already had a fraught day, Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme is a ramshackle, hyperactive sports film like you've never seen before.

In fact, it's probably fair to say it's more about the journey, than the ultimate destination. 

Chalamet plays the overly confident and tunnel-visioned Marty Mauser, who's an excellent shoe salesman in 1950s New York, but whose soul is not in it - despite the owner wanting to make him manager. More a hustler who's convinced himself he can talk his way into anything he wants, Marty is about to take part in a table tennis tournament in the UK but is short on cash. 

Holding his colleague at gunpoint and claiming the money is owed to him, he heads abroad, only to lose in the finals to Japan's Endo. But undeterred, he sees this as just the start after romancing a fallen Hollywood star (Paltrow) and charming her millionaire husband (Shark Tank's O'Leary). However, anything the chaotic Marty seems to touch descends into mayhem.

Marty Supreme starts in a rush of hormonal desire and doesn't really let up from the get-go. With a frenetic eye for a series of episodic sequences, Safdie, along with Chalamet, constructs a tightly wound tale about a man trying to get what he wants with consequences for everyone but him.

With extreme close-ups that give you a view into every pore of some of the characters, and loud needle drops of music throughout, Safdie manages an immersive experience that's nerve-shredding at times in its intensity, even if the story does occasionally feel repetitive and unthreaded.

Yet in the middle of it all is Chalamet, whose nervy and wiry performance is compelling, no matter how unlikeable his Marty Mauser becomes. Despite an unearned ending that's not entirely convincing, Chalamet does more than enough to take you along for the ride.

Marty Supreme may be a claustrophobic ride of tension and an unnerving one at times that dips its toes into a myriad of genres, from crime caper to romance film to Bonnie and Clyde-antics, but it's well worth a watch - as long as you're up to date with your blood pressure medicines.