MOVIE REVIEW

This documentary follows four eccentric players on the tournament circuit in a gently revealing glimpse of a familiar obsession.

By Kevin Crust, Times Staff Writer

Never at a loss for words, Eric Chaikin and Julian Petrillo's witty and intelligent documentary, "Word Wars: Tiles and Tribulations on the Scrabble Circuit," follows four unconventional players as they work toward the 2002 national championships in San Diego:

Matt Graham, the No. 7-ranked Scrabble player in the country, is a manic New York-based stand-up comic who takes vitamin supplements and other "smart drugs" in an effort to boost his brainpower.

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The No. 13-ranked "G.I." Joel Sherman, a college dropout from the Bronx who endures a slew of physical ailments, including gastrointestinal reflux, from which he derives his nickname.

Marlon Hill, a burly, dreadlocked man who grew up, and still lives, in a tough section of East Baltimore (think HBO's "The Wire"), is ranked 29th and proudly writes and speaks in Ebonics.

And the least-liked of the foursome, tai chi practitioner Joe Edley is, not surprisingly, ranked the top player and once lived under a bush in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park while he was reigning national champion in the early 1980s.

Moving from tournament to tournament, the men devote their lives to Scrabble, a game in which you are unlikely to earn much money, despite the nationals' $25,000 first prize. Hill matter-of-factly states that he "does absolutely nothing for a living," and Sherman doubts that he has ever contributed anything to society. From hotel rooms and high-pressure five-day tournaments to the street-smart games played in Washington Park, "Word Wars" takes us into the insular world of these top-ranked players.

To their credit, they are incredibly frank about who they are and what it is they do. At the same time, there is a certain nobility to their pursuit. In a thin, off-key voice, Sherman warbles the Beatles' "Across the Universe" as a Scrabble anthem: "Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup, they slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe."

The filmmakers employ amusing graphics and cleverly played anagrams to flavor what might have been a less-than-stimulating visual territory and provide a peek at what goes on inside the players' minds as they scramble and de-scramble their racks in search of the elusive seven-word "bingos."

The film stands up well to the inevitable comparisons to "Spellbound," a riveting documentary about young spelling bee contestants. Though Scrabble doesn't avail itself to the natural drama of the spelling bee, Chaikin and Petrillo have crafted an empathetic and revealing portrait of four men whose obsession is both a little bit sad and more than a little bit recognizable.

'Word Wars'

MPAA rating: Unrated

Times guidelines: Language, apparent drug use and solicitation

A Seventh Art Releasing presentation. Directors Eric Chaikin and Julian Petrillo. Producer Eric Chaikin. Executive producers Udy Epstein, Vivian Schiller. Director of photography Laela Kilbourn. Editor Conor O'Neill. Music Thor Madsen. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes. Exclusively at Laemmle's Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 274-6869.