The film follows five players of a pen-and-paper RPG called Demons, Nymphs and Dragons (get it "DND") and are getting ready to break the world record for the number of hours in a single game, over 74,000 hours. They have been playing every week for 23 years, and all they have to show for their lives are really powerful characters, and dead-end jobs.
Gamers is done in documentary style as the cameras follow the five main characters (Kevin, Gordon, Paul, Fernando and Reese) around their daily lives as they lead up to the night the record will be broken. Kevin (Kevin Sherwood) is the groups' Game Lord and he has gotten a special robe made (large, white and with a pointy hood) that will, of course, get him into some fairly predictable trouble before the film is up. Paul (Scott Rinker) has put together a scrapbook of their time together while Reese, played by Dave Hanson, is the party's newcomer, and is mostly annoyed by Kevin's desire to kill all of his characters. Fernando (Joe Nieves), while loving the game, has just found out that his girlfriend is pregnant and worries about having to quite playing DND, while Gordon (Kevin Kirkpatrick) is starting to realize that he has wasted the last 20 years of his life when he runs into a girl he had a crush on in high school who is in town for their reunion.
Needless to say, Gordon's realizations start to put the streak's reign in jeopardy. Before the end of the movie, the party's decision to play their ground-breaking night fluctuates as various life issues get in the way of the record.
While the movie has a fairly decent production quality to it, especially given its indy status, I just never really found myself enjoying it. More times than not, I felt insulted because it seemed to take the average RPG gamer and slant them in an extreme light that, while occasionally comical, was typically just absurd. At least the movie has a couple of things going for it. John Heard does an excellent job of playing Gordon's swinger of a father. But it portrays gamers in a very negative and pathetic (not to mention occasionally psychotic) light that just isn't true. As I said earlier, somehow this film has achieved a level of cult status, but I can't see why since most gamers that I know who would watch this film would find it a waste.
Quite frankly, if you are looking for a good comedy film based on role playing, you should check out The Gamers. In fact, I would only really recommend watching Gamers if you could immediately follow it up with this better, and lower budgeted, RPG movie.
