Frag (2008) User Reviews

Shallow

[TheRickmeister · 4/10 · 20 October 2008]

This documentary wants to shine a light on the, for most people unknown, pro gaming society. Those exceptionally talented teenagers struggle to get acceptance by their parents and are struggling to give up their education to go pro.

I am a bit of a gamer myself. I like to play from time to time. So I'm always interested in documentaries about pro gaming. I know it is damn hard, and that you'll have to be amazingly good at it to become a pro. This documentary disappointed me. It doesn't go deep. It's pretty all round and doesn't focus on a subject. Like the documentary "The King of Kong" for example focused only on two players fighting each other for the world record. Gaming is pretty big. Lots of different things you can focus on. They start general then narrow it down to professional gaming. But they fail to get specific. If they only had focused on a couple of gamers and tell more about their struggle it would be way more interesting and telling a lot more about pro gaming.

Maybe I am prejudiced, but they failed to deliver.

Worth Watching

[IowaFilmCritic · 10/10 · 6 December 2023]

It's a great film and a look into the world of Professional gaming. It shows the human side of E-Sports athletes and the real struggles that they face. It's not just about being an outcast from your family, but fighting with shady sponsors and corrupt practices of the gaming leagues.

Frag does a great job shining a light into the world of E-Sports. The good, the bad and the ugly.

This film also does a fantastic job of explaining how professional gaming works and explaining it's origins.

You will learn from several legends from the video game creators to the legends of E-Sports. They helped pioneer what we all appreciate today.

A fairly pedestrian effort.

[knifeintheeye · 3/10 · 20 October 2008]

I don't play a lot of video games, but this looked like an interesting doc and certainly a decent waste of my time. After all, times are changing, new revenue streams are always opening, and new careers and incomes are developed. Often times the best documentaries are on subjects you either have no knowledge about, or subjects that seem uninteresting. For example, Spellbound, a doc on spelling bees is amazing.

However, Frag, does not deliver. It's far too long with its running time of just under an hour and a half. It was simply bloated and did not deliver. Where were the hard hitting answers to the problems it raised? Drugs, corruption in the corporate ranks etc… While some of the gamers themselves were interesting, not enough was spent on them and their lives. (With the exception of Rafik; but Rafik was easily the most interesting, and a whole doc could be made on him alone and his struggles.) I'm sure this will appeal to most hardcore gamers, but I have a hard time seeing this develop a following like Air Guitar Nation or King of Kong, or remembered years down the line.

Stop whining and get a real job.

[Sulaco72 · 5/10 · 16 January 2009]

Frag had me until about three quarters of the way through when it became a character assassination of Angel, the head of the video game league. Maybe he deserved it, but that's not the point. The point is the doc changes direction on you very suddenly, and it feels like the filmmakers drew you in with the first three quarters of the doc only to ambush you with their own personal agenda toward the end. Furthermore, their case against Angel appears largely based on hearsay and rumors with few established facts, and Angel is given little to no chance to respond to the accusations. The best part though is the end in which the sad piano music plays and a somber narrator intones about how the tournament winners don't get their prize money and how being a pro gamer is HARD and there's a lot of PRESSURE and it's no longer FUN. LOL! Hey, he could be describing my job! But you don't see shouting from the rooftops about how unfair it is. I agree the winners should get the prize money they are owed, but it's hard for me to gather much sympathy for people who think they are owed a living for playing a video game! Did they really believe this was a viable career choice? It's going to be a laugh when these kids realize they'll have to work for a living like everyone else. Are they going to bring their sense of entitlement to the workplace too?