The Coldest Game

This film start with an article talking about the nuclear war, a man "Joshua" playing chess, and the flashback of 7 days earlier scene! As turnout, this film is about a professor "Joshua" disguise as a chess master to represent US and play with the Russian chess champion "Alexander"! His ultimate goal is to expose the mole work for Russian government! Entire film full of boring conversation! The overuse of the video footage, and flashback scene, also make the film unwatchable! The chess match even just show at long angle! Barely intense scene is, the killing of Agent Stone scene! At the end, Joshua lost the final chess game with Alexander! And he back to his normal life! That's it! Another disappointed film!

When I read the description and saw it was filmed in Poland, I have to say I had my expectations. Soviet villains, brave Americans and of course history out of context, just as in the Cold War. No talk of the pigs bay invasion, missiles in Turkey etc. But what really tipped me off was the lousy treatment of chess. The descriptions of the first match and the entire behavior in the match room made no sense whatsoever. The apparent genius move by Mansky was nonsense. Grandmasters would never make such hasty moves in an important competition. There are not 6800 responses to the first move but exactly 20, 16 pawns and 4 knight moves. And then sorry, genius or not, it takes constant training to muster chess.