It's surprising that sports documentaries don't crowd the movie marketplace, given how naturally the subject fits the medium. What could be more true-to-life and dramatic than a game, played by strong-willed individuals, and with no fixed outcome? Even a game as static as bowling—fun to play, but dull to watch—can be gripping when a filmmaker takes the time to explain who the athletes are, and what they stand to gain or lose. Christopher Browne's A League Of Ordinary Gentlemen covers one full season on the Professional Bowlers Association tour, following top players like the flamboyant Pete Weber and the reliable Walter Ray Williams Jr., as well as small-timers like Chris Barnes and fading legends like Wayne Webb. It's a workmanlike film, but by the time two of the above bowlers are rolling against each other for the PBA championship, Browne has the audience sweating every spare.
Browne brings a surprising amount of scope to the project, beginning A League Of Ordinary Gentlemen with a mini-history of bowling's rise in popularity at the dawn of television, and its decline in the wake of cable. He even interviews Robert D. Putnam, whose pop-sociology text Bowling Alone isn't about the sport per se, but about how the decline in league bowling reflects the increasing disconnectedness of modern life. The practical result of these trends forms the basis of Ordinary Gentlemen's subplot. A trio of ex-Microsoft execs buys the PBA and hires Nike marketing guru Steve Miller to run it. Early in the film, Miller holds a meeting with the pro bowlers and urges them to bring some personality back to the game.
That order comes easiest to Weber, the son of former pro superstar Dick Weber, who's famous in his own right for the way he howls and pounds his crotch after nailing an important strike. A League Of Ordinary Gentlemen narrows as it goes, and Browne doesn't do enough with the idea of a corporate takeover of a grassroots recreational activity, but Weber's antics and his colleagues' reactions make for fine drama all on their own. What do people really want: good bowling, or good theater? Would they settle for a good documentary that combines both?