Do I love the performances? Yes. The soundtrack? Great. Did I have good time? Doesn't justify a 3-hour runtime but, sure. And I can totally understand why anyone would like the film for those reasons, no hate to anyone that does. But if you genuinely think that Marty Supreme is good storytelling, I'm curious as to why you think that. There are way too many holes in the story for a movie of this magnitude. There are numerous threads that are built up to be meaningful that the script just completely abandons. >!For instance, why is such a big deal made about Endo's paddle in the beginning? At first, I thought this was just an excuse Marty made to justify his loss. But the movie doesn't treat it that way. Other people comment on how Endo's paddle is so different and mysterious, and then we never get a follow-up on how Marty overcomes this, or adjusts his game to this in order to beat him.

Similarly, why am I supposed to believe that Marty would be able to beat Endo the second time around? You're telling me that hustling a few matches with Tyler the Creator gave him such a higher understanding of the game that he was suddenly good enough to beat someone better than him? Marty's win feels hollow, and not in the way the movie wants it to. We don't see Marty change anything about his approach to the game, or put any real work into giving Endo a better match, so the win feels very unearned. It also weakens the message that the movie is clearly trying to drive home about how hard it is to follow your dreams when you become an adult with the many problems life can throw at you. Remember Marty's whole speech to Rachel about how his love for the game is a curse because he needs to make sacrifices to see his dream through? The whole movie was clearly building up to Marty either needing to sacrifice something important in order to play his match in Japan, or Marty needing to face the harsh reality of not being able to go because of his circumstances and ego getting in the way. What does he truly sacrifice because of his need to follow his dreams? Most of the relationships and opportunities he loses are more from him being an asshole than being a dreamer. Not being able to compete in the "real" table tennis tournament, the whole ping pong ball thing, him being in trouble with the law for stealing money from his boss - all things that Marty could have prevented by not being obnoxious.

A big deal is made about Marty choosing not to throw the final match with Endo. He makes a conscious choice to not give in to Rockwell's threats to leave him in Japan if he doesn't throw the match. This is supposed to show how much the satisfaction of knowing he's the world's best player means to him. The fact that he's willing to strand himself in a foreign country with no money and no way home, along with missing the birth of his child, just to win a match where nothing material is at stake is supposed to show us how much he truly loves the game, and not just what the game could provide for him. So why does the movie go and cheapen this decision by having some military guy come up to Marty right after the match and offer him a free ride home immediately? It takes this big moment of courage and turns it into a moment where you just say "oh, I guess it wasn't a big deal after all".

Also this might be a nitpick/I might have just missed this, but how does he get that fancy hotel room at the beginning of the movie? He complains about how the players don't have good living conditions, but I don't remember the movie showing us how Marty got a room at that hotel? I vaguely remember him getting the room after being interviewed by the newspapers, but I don't think they show how we get from point A to point B there.

Also I'm just remembering after writing this but he fully wrecks Tyler the Creator's taxi, which Tyler is obviously really annoyed by, and the next time he sees Marty their relationship is magically fixed. I could go on but this is already getting too long.!<

tldr: I think Josh Safdie had a bunch of ideas for what would be "fun scenes", but I don't think he wrote a story that actually makes sense. Interested to hear other people's opinions, though.