Marty Mauser has everything a world-class table-tennis player could want—talent, dedication, focus and, most of all, confidence. But that confidence leads him to lie, cheat, steal and act like a world-class jerk. So perhaps it’s fitting that while Marty Supreme is a well-crafted film, it’s also incredibly foul, morally adrift and not fit for families.
Don’t call it ping-pong.
You play ping-pong in the basement with your cousin. Marty Mauser plays table tennis with the best in the world.
OK, so admittedly, the “best” come from a pretty small pool of enthusiasts in 1952. No one’s asking Marty for autographs. No one’s packaging Marty Mauser cards with slices of bubblegum. But it’s just a matter of time. Marty’s sure of it.
But for Marty to climb that rocket ship to sports superstardom, he’ll first need to fly to London. Beat the best in the world there. Spark a firestorm of table-tennis interest in the U.S.
And to do that, he needs $700.
He had it, too. Murray—Marty’s uncle and boss at the shoe store where Marty works—promised to loan it to him. But Murray also thinks that table tennis is a stupid career choice. Why not settle into a nice career hocking shoes? So Murray skips out early, locks the safe and hopes that Marty will have no choice but to give up those table-tennis dreams and settle into a nice career selling soles.
But Marty won’t be denied his dreams. Not even if he must take the money at gunpoint.
Which is exactly what he does.
Yes, Marty’s on his way now. He has his paddle, his shoes, his ticket to London. And most of all, he has his confidence—that boundless, reckless belief in himself.
All he needs to do now is win. And win big.
Well, and talk his way out of a prison sentence when he gets home.
Marty’s trip to London is actually the beginning of his adventure, not the end of it. When he returns home, he deals with the police, angry ping-pong players, jilted business partners, desperate lovers and at least one crime boss. And throughout it all, Marty proves to be … well, a terrible role model. But I guess you could applaud him for his confidence.
Marty’s table-tennis opponents often feel more honorable. Former champ Bela Kletzki, we learn, survived the Holocaust during World War II and helped keep some other people alive, too. Young Japanese upstart Koto Endo responds to Marty’s hot-headed antics with polite reserve, and he gives Marty the game of his life when the Japanese player could’ve walked away a winner.
But as Marty Supreme (the movie’s name taken from some ping-pong balls that Marty and a business partner would like to hock) trundles on and Marty’s adventures grow ever more outlandish, we see him humbled. And through pain and necessity, Marty’s self-serving priorities take a turn toward something better and more genuine.
Both Marty and Bela Kletzki are Jewish. Talking with the media, Marty brags that he’ll do to Bela what Auschwitz couldn’t: “Finish the job.”
Marty has a girlfriend in New York named Rachel. She’s pregnant, and she swears the baby is Marty’s. Also, she’s married to another guy. She and Marty engage in a moment of serious intimacy in a shoe store’s backroom before they’re interrupted. Marty swears that the baby’s not his and spends much of the movie trying to shirk his duties.
Whatever Marty’s emotional or relational attachments are to Rachel, it doesn’t stop him from having an affair with another married woman. Kay Stone is a former movie actress old enough to be Marty’s mother. But Marty seduces her (perhaps in part to fund his table-tennis dreams), and we see the two engaged in sex at least twice. One is in a shower, where we see both from the shoulders up and plenty of suggestive movements. The other is in a public park: Both are clothed but clearly engaged in a sex act when they’re stopped by policemen.
Marty rifles through a pile of photos featuring naked women. Marty bares his backside to the camera, and he appears on screen without a shirt. (In one scene, he’s wearing just a towel.) We see Kay in her undergarments at times.
Who knew that the world of table tennis could be so dangerous?
Two people are shot and presumably killed during a shootout. (One man is alive the last time we see him but clearly incapacitated and with apparently no hope of rescue.) Another man is stabbed in the gut. A homeowner takes a shotgun and blasts away at some unexpected visitors, blowing out a car window in the process. A vehicle crashes through a front porch.
A bathtub falls through the floor in a really iffy hotel, bloodily injuring someone’s arm and nearly crushing a dog. (The pooch suffers a bit of a breathing malady after the accident, allegedly, and the owner insists that someone whisk him away to a vet.)
A massive explosion occurs. Rachel’s husband has a volatile temper and throws things around a lot—but it’s he who suffers a punch in the face that leaves him bloodied. In a scene meant to be humiliating, an adult man is spanked in front of several onlookers. A pair of ping-pong hustlers is harassed and nearly attacked by a gang of their angry victims.
A couple of characters fake injuries. Marty sometimes throws things in frustration. Marty’s long-suffering business partner tosses a box of ping-pong balls out a window. A stage production features some threatening gestures with a knife. We hear about how someone’s son was killed during World War II.
About 85 f-words and 30 s-words. We also hear “a–,” “b–ch,” “d–n,” “d-ck” and the n-word. God’s name is misused nearly 20 times, at least three of those with the word “d–n.” Jesus’ name is abused once.
Wine, beer and champagne are all consumed during dinners, parties and at bowling alleys.
Marty lies almost as well as he plays table tennis: He’ll say his mother’s dead (she’s not); that his girlfriend is his sister; that he’s just a poor, misunderstood young man who’s just trying to do the right thing. He’ll weasel his way into a five-star hotel and skip out on the bill. He will say or do just about anything to move closer to his goals, from hustling some amateur players out of their hard-earned cash to stealing a diamond necklace right off someone’s neck—while he’s having sex with her. He breaks promises, abuses trust, runs from police, shirks responsibilities and basically acts like a big ol’ jerk for much of the film.
‘Course, most of the young man’s associates are nearly as bad. His mother feigns sickness to get attention. His uncle breaks his own promises and pays a police officer to scare Marty into sticking around. Girlfriend Rachel—desperate to get Marty to admit his paternity of her preborn child and rope him into continuing their relationship—convinces Marty that her husband’s beating her. She even gives herself a black eye via a bit of makeup.
When all of Marty’s scheming comes to naught, he switches tack and tries out a new strategy: abject humiliation. He submits to a literal spanking from his would-be benefactor, and he agrees to participate in a fixed match. (He later learns that losing that match will involve kissing a pig, too.)
Marty feigns racist attitudes so that he and his Black best friend, Wally, can hustle folks out of thousands of dollars. (Essentially, by acting like a world-class jerk, he gets onlookers to bet on Wally. Then, once Wally’s done, those same gamblers challenge Marty to a game—hoping to humiliate him.)
In a flashback, we see how a man helped fellow concentration-camp victims to survive. While out in the woods, he finds a honeycomb. He smears the honey all over his torso and allows his male compatriots to lick it off—which they do en masse.
A dog, who apparently rolled around in something off camera, offends several people with its stench.
When Rachel begs Marty to admit he’s the father of her preborn child, accept responsibility and maybe table his table-tennis dreams, Marty lashes out. He’s special, he tells her. He’s a unique talent. He’s not just one more faceless grunt in a world full of them: He is a man touched by destiny. And anything he says or does in pursuit of that destiny is absolutely fair and forgivable.
“I have a purpose!” He tells Rachel. “You don’t!”
Marty presumably regrets those words later. A dose of humility and perspective is waiting around the narrative corner, and that coda is surprisingly resonant. But that comeuppance doesn’t alter the fact that, for most of Marty Supreme, you kinda want to punch the movie’s hero in the face.
Marty Mauser—loosely based on real-life table-tennis champion Marty Reisman—may be one of 2025’s most unlikable cinematic protagonists. Sure, Timothée Chalamet gives the guy some swagger and charm. And the sheer outlandishness of his adventures keeps moviegoers buckled in for the ride. But Marty Supreme feels like the cinematic equivalent of a pickle-and-mayo sandwich made by your strict, easily offended aunt Gertrude: Its taste is questionable; its value is negligible, but you gotta choke it down somehow.
Marty Supreme is the bloodiest, foulest, most obscene movie about table tennis you’ll ever see. It, like Marty, will take you down some dark and questionable paths. And while the film does score a nice point or two near the end, it winds up a loser for families.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
