THE COLDEST GAME : Monday 30th March 2020.

In these very trying and testing times for us all that has seen many cinema's, Odeon's, and movie theatres around the world close their doors for the foreseeable future because of the escalating threat of the COVID-19 Coronavirus taking an ever increasing hold on the world at large, many film and television productions halted in their tracks indefinitely, and new film releases pushed back to some future date when some sense of movie going normalcy is expected to resume, I have, needless to say, had to adapt to this new world order. And so with my usual Reviews of the latest cinematic releases being curtailed, instead I will post my Review of the latest release movies showing on Netflix until such time as the regular outing to my local multiplex or independent theatre can be reinstated.

In the last few weeks then, a number of new feature films have landed at Netflix - of which I review as below 'The Coldest Game' which I saw from the comfort of my own sofa on Monday 30th March.

'THE COLDEST GAME' is an English language Polish spy drama Directed and Co-Written for the screen by Lukasz Kosmicki. The film saw its World Premier screening at the 44th Gdynia Film Festival in Poland in September last year, was released in cinemas in its native country in November and streamed on Netflix from earlier in March, having garnered generally positive Press, and collecting three award wins and twelve other nominations along the way.

Here Joshua Mansky (Bill Pullman) is a brilliant middle-aged mathematician, a former world champion chess player and an alcoholic, who has stooped to hustling card games at his local bar which he invariable wins by counting cards and applying the law of averages. One night while exiting the bar with his winnings he is physically manhandled into the back of car, drugged and blindfolded. He comes around locked in a glass soundproof room within a room, somewhat dazed and confused. His captors reveal themselves to be American secret service agents - Agents Stone and White (Lotte Verbeek and James Bloor respectively) and their superior officer Donald Novak (Corey Johnson), and that he is now enclosed inside the American Embassy in Warsaw, Poland.

Mansky is very reluctantly pulled into the world of international espionage and conflict between the world's superpowers - the USA and the USSR when, at the height of the Cold War in 1962, he is forced to compete in a chess tournament against Soviet champion Alexander Gavrylov (Yevgeny Sidikhin) in the Polish capital of Warsaw, hence his presence there. He has 24 hours to front up to Round One of five, and as per tournament rules, Mansky is the only eligible substitute for the prior American contender, who was found dead by Soviet poisoning.

Mansky's US handlers reveal that his chess match is really a game within a game, and that it is staged within the race between US and Soviet intelligence services to find and eliminate high level spies for the other side within their ranks at the upcoming chess match that is watched by high ranking military, political and other government personnel. This espionage is itself set within the more far reaching context of the tactical naval and strategic nuclear movements of a rapidly crumbling Cuban Missile Crisis, with humanity itself noticeably escalating toward an imminent thermonuclear war. Among the tournament attendees is a Soviet officer double agent searching in vain for an opportunity to provide crucial information to the Americans regarding Soviet capabilities and intentions in Cuba.

Mansky's erratic behavior and alcoholism is revealed to be partly due to his brilliance, with alcohol having the effect of slowing his brain function enough to operate at a more normal level. Either drunk or sober which in turn makes him confident or paranoid, Mansky dramatically wins some chess matches, yet loses others for half a point awarded to each player. He distrusts his US handlers, yet forms a close bond with a fellow alcoholic and Director of the Palace of Culture and Science Alfred Slega (Robert Wieckiewicz), who recounts his own personal experiences of Soviet occupation over communist Poland and considers the Warsaw Pact as simply a continuation of the Nazi influence.

Mansky steals hard liquor whenever possible, sneaks in and out through the Warsaw sewers, and is witness to various sudden violent deaths of American and Soviet tournament observers, including Agents Stone and White, and ultimately his new friend the Director at the hands of Soviet General Krutov (Aleksey Serebryakov) all the while attempting to balance his conscience with the demands of the chess games which he is duty bound to play.

Ultimately Mansky misses out on the final deciding game due to a distraction that sees Krutov pointing a gun in his face and threatening to kill him were it not for the intervention of Novak. His absence sees Gavrylov awarded the championship by default yet Mansky's efforts help ensure the most crucial tournament victory, namely that of the survival of the human race through 1962 and beyond. Sometime following, secret discussions begin between the US and the USSR, which results in mutual softening measures, nuclear arms control agreements and eventually US assistance with nuclear disarmament in former communist countries in the Eastern Bloc after the Revolutions of the late '80's and early '90's that resulted in the end of communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond. Before the end credits role, the epilogue brings us up to date with the US and Russia's new stance on nuclear arms . . . . . which we should all be more fearful of!

'The Coldest Game' for its 96 minute run time moves along a good pace, but is somewhat disjointed by the convoluted plot threads that pay less attention to the ubiquitous games of chess, and more to Mansky's alcohol habit and the machinations of either side trying to gain the upper hand. Pullman was drafted in at the last minute when William Hurt had to pull out of playing the lead character due to an off-set injury, so I guess that Pullman could be forgiven for his partial lack of preparedness with his character, although always watchable, but here lacks any real depth. Except that is for the scenes with his new mate on the ground Slega, with whom he shares an affinity and a connectedness which helps elevate both performances beyond the dull. Here Kosmicki seems to be channeling Hitchcock with his everyman thrust from familiar surroundings into some foreign place to fight a faceless enemy and win the day, all wrapped up in dimly lit streets, hotel rooms with secret passageways, questionably friends and deadly foes and our hero fighting his own inner demons. But, Kosmicki doesn't quite pull it off, instead giving us a superficial glance at a chess tournament with the cursory backdrop of a global nuclear crisis and largely one dimensional characters.

'The Coldest Game' warrants two claps of the Odeon Online clapboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-