IF YOU'VE SPENT hours memorizing dictionaries and can pull words like arenose (a synonym for "sandy"), sylvite (an ore of potassium), and tup (don't ask!) out of your hat when the chips are down, then you may have the chops to enter one of the many official Scrabble tournaments held throughout the nation every year. But make no mistake, neophytes: if you're going to go for the gold at the granddaddy of lettered-tile throw-downs – the National Tournament, where the winner gets $25,000 and a spot on the Today Show – against the top-rated tile jockeys, you'd better bring your A game. Better yet, make that your A-Zymosan (an insoluble, largely polysaccharide fraction of yeast cell walls) game, as this documentary following professional Scrabble players on the path to triple-word-score glory in San Diego proves these warlords of words are a tough bunch to out-verbalize. Haunting the park benches, bachelor pads, and hotel convention centers where these word freaks vie for supremacy, Word Wars focuses on a quartet with their eyes on the prize: Matt Graham, a sloppy stand-up comedian with a penchant for gambling; "G.I." Joel Sherman, a spindly New Yorker with major gastrointestinal maladies; Joe Edley, a Zen obsessive who studies flash cards while he drives; and Marlon Hill, a dreadlocked pot smoker who refers to himself as a "pre-Mecca Malcolm playing motherfucking Scrabble!" Some tangential asides contrast the tournament circuit to New York City's Washington Square Park board hustlers and explore the social ramifications of removing "offensive" words from Scrabble dictionaries, but directors Eric Chaikin and Julian Petrillo wisely concentrate their kino-eyes on personalizing the Fab Four of 15-letter-word fluency, offering up a funny, fresh view of "the game" as both an alpha male chest-beating and a refuge for brainiacs obsessed with mastering morphemes. (David Fear)