Everyone loves a great sports rivalry between individuals.  A great sports rivalry can lead to memorable matches, heated emotion, superior trash talking, occasional violence, and of course, incredible displays of athletic prowess. Even better, pretty much every sport can point to some defining dogfight which has electrified spectators.

Consider:  Cristiano Ronaldo-Lionel Messi (soccer); Arnold Palmer-Jack Nicklaus (golf); Chris Evert-Martina Navratilova (tennis); Bobby Fischer-Boris Spassky (chess); Larry Bird-Magic Johnson (basketball); Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier (boxing); Brian Lara-Sachin Tendulkar (cricket); Jahangir Khan-Jansher Khan (squash); etc.  In fact, the ongoing grapple between Formula One auto racer Niki Lauda and James Hunt was so irrefutable that director Ron Howard made the feud the basis of his 2013 movie Rush.[1]

To that list, we can add the multi-year face-off between world snooker champions Alex “Hurricane” Higgins and “Interesting” Steve Davis, a rivalry that ran through the 1980s and, as a result, turned a back room parlor game into a sport watched on television by more than 18 million people. Fortunately, the bitter contest between these two giants is exceptionally captured in Brian Welsh’s movie, The Rack Pack, which premiered exclusively on BBC’s iPlayer in January, 2016.

The film begins in 1972, with Higgins (Luke Treadaway) defeating John Spencer to win the World Snooker Championship. Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” is used to evoke this epic changing of the guard, with the working-class, semi-unhinged Higgins now emerging as the “People’s Champion.”

As Higgins injects his maverick, I-don’t-give-a-fuck personality into the sport, fast-forward to 1976, when promoter Barry Hearn (Kevin Bishop) test-drives Steve Davis (Will Merrick), a young, up-and-comer.  Seeing the bowl-cut teetotaler for the first time, Hearn brilliantly quips about Davis, “God, he’s pale…I bet he gets sunburnt when he opens the fridge.”  (Of course, that’s genteel compared to Higgins’ remark when he first eyes his red-headed future nemesis: “What happened?  Did a carrot fuck a snail up the arse?”)

Hearn believes there is big money to be made from snooker. In the robotic Davis, he senses gold, assuming he can mold Davis into a formidable and intimidating player.  Hearn also knows Higgins’ swagger and bravado are signs of vulnerability, saying, “[Higgins] plays to the gunnery like there’s an award for the best shot.  He can’t take a round of applause to bed. He’s like a little boy lost, desperate for approval. Emotion, Davis, is the enemy of success…We need to create an aura of invincibility around you.”

Thus begins an Eliza Doolittle-like transformation of Davis, from a video-game-playing, milk-drinking, socially awkward looby to a stone-cold, laser-focused, snooker assassin, with every mannerism, from crossing his legs to holding his drink, rehearsed for maximum effect. In Hearn’s words, this is the game of “mental snooker.”

The metamorphosis is incredible.  After losing terribly to Higgins in the quarterfinals of the 1980 World Snooker Championships, Davis returns the following year to win the World Championship.  Though Higgins returns the favor in 1982, Davis effectively becomes a snooker juggernaut, rebounding to win the world title five more times in 1983, 1984, 1987, 1988, and 1989.  He boasts, “There is no one around who can concentrate long enough to be a threat to my dominating records for years to come.”

Musically, Davis’ ascent is complemented by some high-powered voltage by an incredible, 1970s-1980s British rock soundtrack, including “Another One Bites the Dust” (Queen), “Money For Nothing” (Dire Straits), “Sunshine of My Love” (Cream), “Voodoo Child” (Jimi Hendrix), “Tiny Dancer” (Elton John), and “Who Are You” (Who). Those aural anthems are used liberally, along with montages of potted balls, newspaper articles, and magazine covers, all creating a whirligig of snooker and promotional activity around the unstoppable Davis and Hearn, his master puppeteer.

In addition to Higgins and Davis, The Rack Pack features (brief) appearances by an  extended pantheon of actors portraying snooker greats from the decade, including Kirk Stevens, Jimmy White, Dennis Taylor, Cliff Thorburn, Tony Knowles, and even a 16-year-old Matthew Harrison (who Davis embarrassingly defeats 134-0).

While The Rack Pack probably fawns too much on Hearn, the film doesn’t hold back on showing the meltdown of Higgins, whose repeated losses to Davis both corroded and eroded Higgins, turning him into a coke-fueled, whoring, foul-mouthed, absent father and emotionally abusive husband. A number of the scenes evoke Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights, both in their portrayal of the impact drugs can have on a career and in their stark portrayal of a man out-of-touch with the times.   (Interestingly, some reviewers felt the movie was too clement in its portrayal of Higgins, saying the character was “romanticized to brush over some of the more unsavory and extreme aspects of his personality.”[2])

Like many biopics, The Rack Pack struggles with what life chapters to leave on the cutting room floor.  Thus, the last quarter of the movie tends to drag on, as Davis achieves new strata of fame by selling everything from coffee to fragrance; making a quiz show board game; and joining a number of other snooker professionals to sing “Snooker Loopy,” a Chas & Dave song that surprisingly hit the #6 position on the UK Singles Chart.[3]

But, the film emotionally reconnects with its audience in the final scenes, when Higgins, defeated and bankrupt, approaches Hearn, offering to let him become is manager.  Hearn responds, patiently and truthfully,  that  “Snooker needs you, but I don’t need you [Alex]…The millions out there don’t tune in to watch the snooker, they watch for the soap opera….You’re destroying yourself, and millions enjoy watching the process.”  It’s a proper denouement for the Hurricane, whose star would never shine again.  The onetime millionaire died in 2010, penurious, from a mix of malnutrition, pneumonia, and a bronchial condition.

Billiards movies fans often lament that both the lack of good films since The Color of Money (1986) and the absence of snooker films.  Cry a tear no longer.  The Rack Pack is high-quality entertainment, as well as a compelling biopic on two titans whose incredible skills and contrasting personalities fueled one of the most impressive rivalries in sports history.

To the frustration of many, The Rack Pack is available exclusively on BBC’s iPlayer, which is not viewable outside of the United Kingdom.  However, there are many known workarounds, such as the Hola unblocker plugin for Chrome, that can spoof IP addresses and eliminate this restriction.

[1]       There is a wonderful running list, with commentary, of individual sports rivalries on Quora, though sadly there is no mention given to any rivalries existing in billiards.

[2]       http://www.snookerbacker.com/2016/01/19/the-rack-pack-review-a-triumph-of-sound-and-vision/

[3]       Goofy as it is, “Snooker Loopy” holds the #3 spot on my Top 10 Billiards Songs and Music Videos.