Spoilers for Marty Supreme below. Read on at your own risk.
It brings me little pleasure to inform you that Kevin O’Leary, or Shark Tank’s Mr. Wonderful, is excellent in Marty Supreme. This is no small feat considering the star-studded cast of Josh Safdie’s new A24 Ping-Pong movie features several once-in-a-generation talents, including its lead, Timothée Chalamet. O’Leary has virtually no professional acting experience, and yet he’s one of Marty Supreme’s main characters. But it all works out because he’s ultimately just … playing himself.
Which is to say: a fat-cat entrepreneur and bona fide jerk. As O’Leary proudly informed TMZ, Safdie and script writer Ronald Bronstein just handed him the film’s script — no acting classes, no audition. “We need a real asshole … and you’re it,” they supposedly said. In the film, O’Leary plays Milton Rockwell, the CEO of the pen manufacturer Rockwell, Inc., and one of the richest men in America in the 1950s, when the movie is set.
Rockwell first meets the movie’s protagonist, the Jewish American Ping-Pong player Marty Mauser (Chalamet), during the sport’s world championships in London. Mauser, a wannabe high roller, is trying to seduce Rockwell’s wife, Kay Stone, a socialite and retired Hollywood belle. When he sees them at the Ritz-Carlton, he attempts to foot the couple’s dinner bill. Rockwell, instantly suspicious, storms over to Mauser’s table to question why but stays for a longer conversation with Mauser and his friend Béla Kletzki, who spent years in a concentration camp. “My son was killed liberating you,” Rockwell practically spits out. (Horrible.)
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Rockwell’s son was actually killed during World War II by the Japanese, but that’s neither here nor there for him. All he cares about is business, and business is in Japan. So after Mauser loses the championships to his Japanese competitor, Koto Endo, Rockwell pitches Mauser an opportunity. He will give the boy $1,000 to play another match against Endo, this time in Tokyo, on the condition that he loses. Mauser originally declines. But later, after a series of misfortunes that are 100 percent his fault, he chases after Rockwell for the money and a trip on his private plane. Rockwell says “yes” — but not before demanding that Marty drop his pants so Rockwell can flog him.
All of O’Leary’s core characteristics are there: his political insensitivity, ruthless wheeling and dealing, and thirst for blood. One of the only living Canadians with a reputation for being mean, the venture capitalist boldly told the Globe and Mail in a 2011 interview, “Business is war. I go out there, I want to kill the competitors. I want to make their lives miserable.” It’s this philosophy that has guided his hostile takeovers of other companies and brusque negotiations on Shark Tank.
O’Leary will stop at nothing to get what he wants, including supporting Donald Trump during his presidential bid and obtaining citizenship in the UAE to better conduct business with Emiratis. Sometimes I think he should be in jail. But since he’s not, and he’s on the big screen, I’ll take a 30 percent stake in his acting career, please.
