gretzky-dvdESPN debuted its 30 for 30 documentaries project with Peter Berg’s Kings Ransom, the story of the Wayne Gretzky trade.  I’m a history nut.  I love documentaries.  This project excited me.  I wasn’t overwhelmed by this first effort, nor was I underwhelmed.  I was…whelmed.  I found it a bit nebulous.

Berg uses persistent urban imagery – highways, skylines, stadiums – but very little that read as distinctly Los Angeles or Edmonton.  For me, it muddled the two cities rather than dichotomizing them.

The introduction was crucial for this story.  I found it flimsy.  I got that Wayne was a great hockey player and Canadians felt attached to him.  I didn’t get why.  Maybe that was obvious for everyone over 30, but I only remember him as a King.  His Edmonton days are like some out of control party I wasn’t invited to.  I would have liked that fleshed out more.

Berg weaves the personal narratives of those involved to the tell the story of the trade with archival noise, but without context.  Gretzky, Bruce McNall and Peter Poklington tell their sides, but there’s little synthesis or direct chronological framework.

The most intriguing part of the film was Gretzky, even though the staged shots of him in the iceless hockey arena were more stilted than enlightening.  There are these staccato glimpses into his humanity; the tears at his press conference, the artificiality and cameras at the wedding he planned, this bizarre, nervous facial expression he has every time he gets on the ice.  After equivocation, he says, “I was mad they were trying to trade me, so I left.”  He was fascinating.

The most problematic part of the film was the ending.  The fallout makes the trade important.  It’s covered in a few lines of perfunctory text, which change the face of the film entirely.

You find out Edmonton won another Stanley Cup in 1990 without Gretzky, so the outraged fans burning Peter Poklington effigies were mollified shortly after.  You also find out that Kings’ owner Bruce McNall was convicted of massive fraud six years later and spent time in prison, so you don’t know how much of his story to believe.

The basis of a documentary is to explain what happened, why it happened and why it was important. Kings Ransom was artfully shot, but I don’t know that it did that for the Gretzky trade.