Tag Archives: Chess

Queen of Katwe (2016)

26 Wednesday Oct 2016

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D: Mira Nair / 124m

Cast: Madina Nalwanga, David Oyelowo, Lupita Nyong’o, Martin Kabanza, Taryn Kyaze, Ronald Ssemaganda, Ethan Nazario Lubega, Nikita Waligwa, Edgar Kanyike, Esther Tebandeke

It may not be obvious at first glance but Disney like to make true stories into movies. Even better is if it’s an inspirational true story. Which is why their production of the true story of Phiona Mutesi isn’t as odd a project as it might seem at first glance. Based on the book, The Queen of Katwe: A Story of Life, Chess, and One Extraordinary Girl’s Dream of Becoming a Grandmaster by Tim Crothers, Mira Nair’s latest movie holds steady to the usual tenets stipulated by Disney when they make a true story into a movie, and the result is a polished but depth-free look at one young girl’s rise from the slums of Uganda to prominence within the world of African chess players.

Phiona (Nalwanga) lives with her mother, Harriet (Nyong’o), her older sister Night (Kyaze), and her two younger brothers, Brian (Kabanza) and Richard. They make a living from selling maize and sweetcorn on the streets of Katwe, one of eight slums in Kampala, Uganda. Early on, Night leaves home to live with her affluent boyfriend. As if her leaving wasn’t enough, Phiona realises that Brian isn’t spending much time selling maize and sweetcorn; instead he’s heading off to do something else. One day, Phiona follows him, and finds that he’s going to a project run by the Sports Outreach Institute, a Christian sports mission. Run by Robert Katende (Oyelowo), the children there are learning how to play chess. Phiona joins the group and it soon becomes obvious that she has a natural aptitude for the game.

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Robert encourages her, and when a local tournament is held, he enters some of the children, including Phiona and Brian. Phiona wins the tournament and she finds she has a degree of fame back in Katwe. Robert wants her to improve her game, but Harriet is suspicious of both chess and Robert’s assertion that Phiona can succeed as a future grandmaster. Initially reluctant to let Phiona follow her destiny, she eventually becomes supportive and proud of her youngest daughter. But Phiona’s increasing confidence leads to complacency and she loses another competition. What follows is a crisis of confidence that sees Phiona believe that the future within her grasp is no longer hers to achieve.

Queen of Katwe has several things going for it. One is the relative unfamiliarity of its location and its characters. Another is the quality of the performances. There’s also Nair’s attentive, confident direction. And there’s Sean Bobbitt’s rich, detailed, vibrant cinematography. All these elements come together and enhance the movie in ways that are entirely felicitous and sometimes unexpectedly profound. As Phiona’s story unfolds, the hardships and the setbacks she faces, while not exactly as grim-looking or -sounding as they probably were in real life, are given enough emphasis that when she and her family are evicted, the audience is likely to be concerned as to what they’ll do next, and where they will go. Their journey has become the viewer’s journey.

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But Nair’s admirable direction, Nalwanga’s easy-going, likeable performance (allied to the more polished performances of Oyelowo and Nyong’o), the beautiful but desperate locations, and Bobbitt’s tremendous depictions of them, all of these wonderful components somehow lack the ability to offset the one major problem the movie has at its core: an over-reliance on predictability. Each development in the story is signposted with almost clockwork regularity, from Phiona’s first tournament loss, to Harriet’s eventual unconditional support for her daughter, to Robert’s decision in relation to a much longed for job opportunity. It’s as if the movie can’t help itself: it has to stick to formula, and it can’t be too imaginative.

What this leaves the viewer with is a further problem: how to adequately qualify their feelings about Phiona’s story, and how much of it is kept from being even more effective (and affecting) by this decision to keep things static. Whole scenes go by where their importance is tenuous to what follows, or indeed, to what’s gone before. It’s even more difficult to lay this weird displacement at the door of the screenwriter, William Wheeler. Wheeler has done a good job in making Phiona’s story both appealing and inspiring, but even when he strays too close to cliché and melodrama he’s still not strayed close enough for those two “bad guys” to have the kind of impact that slows a movie down or makes it seem like too much effort is required.

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In real terms, Queen of Katwe is a story we’ve seen too many times before, and because of this, it’s told in a way that is, at best, a comfortable one for the viewer, but also a desultory one for the movie. Phiona’s family dynamic offers nothing new, and nor does the way in which her story unfolds, from the unexpected success on the lower rungs of the Angolan chess ladder to the here-again-gone-again antics of Night. Even the section where Phiona doubts herself and becomes (somewhat) depressed is approached with a kind of bland decisiveness that adds little or no drama to what’s unfolding. Instead of feeling undue and unnecessary pressure, all it takes is a pep talk from Robert and she’s okay again – and the viewer will know in advance that this will be all she will need to start playing again.

There are many more moments like that one, and the movie is so reliant on them, it’s as if the makers decided to include as much movie shorthand as possible during Queen of Katwe‘s filming, and then they imbedded the idea even further during the editing process. It doesn’t make the movie unwatchable, or a bad movie that could have been better; rather it’s a movie that won’t surprise anyone, and it’s a movie that hits each emotional highpoint with all the skill and precision of someone pushing a dart into a bullseye from a foot away. It’s movie making by rote, and sadly, it lessens the impact of Phiona’s story, and her achievements – which can’t be right, can it?

Rating: 7/10 – a good movie that rescues outright victory from the jaws of averageness too often for its own good, Queen of Katwe has a lot that works but only in the context of its lack of narrative ambition; an odd movie then, one that can be liked and disliked in equal measure, and which will leave many viewers wondering if it’s as good as they think it is.

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Life of a King (2013)

14 Monday Dec 2015

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Life of a King

D: Jake Goldenberger / 98m

Cast: Cuba Gooding Jr, Malcolm M. Mays, Kevin Hendricks, Carlton Byrd, Rachae Thomas, LisaGay Hamilton, Richard T. Jones, Dennis Haysbert, Paula Jai Parker, Jordan Calloway, Blake Cooper Griffin

A true story involving troubled teens, inner city trials and tribulations, an ex-con with family issues, and the redemptive power of chess, Life of a King has good intentions, a lot of heart, and the slow, steady pace of an illness-of-the-week TV movie. It also has a relaxed, committed performance from Gooding Jr, and enough hokey moments to choke an elephant. But what it also has is that curious approach to a true story that often leads audiences to believe that a real person’s life is stuffed full of clichés and dramatic coincidence.

The movie tells the story of Eugene Brown (Gooding Jr), who served seventeen years in prison for armed robbery, and who, once he was released, took the opportunity with a group of inner city youths to set up a community chess club. Along the way he finds it difficult to find honest work by admitting he’s an ex-con; subsequently lies on an application form for janitor at his local high school; tries to reunite with his disaffected children, Katrina (Thomas) and Marcus (Calloway); avoids being dragged back into a life of crime by his old partner Perry (Jones); faces down the school hard nut, Clifton (Byrd); sees potential in another student, Tahime (Mays); is fired once his principal (Hamilton) finds out he’s lied on his application; rents a derelict house so the chess club can carry on; stands helplessly by as one of the other students, Peanut (Hendricks), is dragged into a dangerous situation with unfortunate results; begins to connect with his children through his efforts with the chess club; overcomes a setback involving the house; and looks ahead to his chess protegés entering and triumphing in a local tournament. And then…?

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If any of this sounds incredibly or entirely predictable, then by and large it is. From Brown’s surrogate father relationship with The Chessman (Haysbert) while in gaol, to Tahime’s showdown against a chess prodigy (Griffin), Life of a King ticks every possible true story box in its retelling of Brown’s story. It’s an homogenised approach to an uplifting tale that deserves better, but thanks to Goldberger’s mostly leaden direction, there are precious few moments of real power and emotion. What moments there are, are also mostly down to Gooding Jr’s earnest, well-modulated performance. He’s suitably determined as Brown, and shows the man’s resourcefulness and drive with a good sense of the difficulties he must have faced and overcome.

But again, he’s fighting against the poor performance of Goldberger in the director’s chair (making only his second feature). Goldberger – working from the script he wrote with David Scott and Dan Wetzel – seems unable to rise above the clichéd nature of his own narrative, and on several occasions seems to be embracing each cliché wholeheartedly. Some scenes feel like they’ve been constructed from the DNA of several true story TV movies, and viewers familiar with those kind of movies will notice that some of the scenes have been shot in that very style (and some individual shots as well).

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This all makes the movie watchable enough thanks to the familiarity with which it’s being presented, but a bit of a chore as well thanks to the very same familiarity. Some fun can be had from anticipating each cliché before it appears, and if you felt so inclined, you could devise a predictability curve that could be drawn as the movie progresses (though it might end up being just a straight line). It’s all a shame as Brown’s story is engaging in its own right, and his efforts are well worth celebrating, but a different format is definitely needed. There’s also the problem of the script’s occasional moralising, as it uses the metaphor of chess to represent Life as often as it can, as if the audience wouldn’t get it the first time.

Aside from Gooding Jr’s portrayal of Brown, the rest of the cast do their best to make some headway against the material, with Mays’ reticent Tahime and Hendricks’ eager beaver Peanut making more of an impression than expected. Byrd’s sneering Clifton is straight out of Stock Characters 101, and he’s matched by Jones’ preening drug lord and Calloway’s petulant son. It’s the female characters that come off best (though that’s not saying much), and Hamilton is strongest as the high school principal who’s sympathetic to Brown’s cause (and even helps out with the dishes at the chess house).

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As mentioned above, the movie ends with Tahime taking on a chess genius in an open tournament, and in the final naturally. But what should be a gripping sequence is let down by Goldberger’s inability to shoot it all with any sense of urgency or tension. And he’s further let down by editor Julie Garces, whose decision to represent the game through a flurry of indistinguishable moves and clock-punching makes it all impossible to follow (though that was probably the idea). It’s a clunky end to a movie that’s been the definition of clunky from the very beginning.

Rating: 4/10 – slackly and lazily constructed, Life of a King doesn’t do its subject matter justice, and lets the audience down in the process; tired and ineffective, it’s a true life tale that’s been soaked in complacency and shows off its shortcomings as if they were unavoidable.

Wicked Blood (2014)

28 Wednesday May 2014

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Wicked Blood

aka Bad Blood

D: Mark H. Young / 92m

Cast: Abigail Breslin, Sean Bean, James Purefoy, Alexa Vega, Lew Temple, Jake Busey, Jody Quigley

Hannah Lee Baker (Breslin) and her sister Amber (Vega) live in a small Southern town. Both their parents are dead and they live with their uncle Donny (Temple). Hannah is something of a chess prodigy and views the world around her in terms of a tournament match, with the pieces on the board representing the people she interacts with. The king is her uncle Frank (Bean), the local crime boss. After receiving a threatening visit from the FBI about Frank, she hatches a plan to leave town and take her sister and Donny with her. She approaches Frank and asks for a job making drug deliveries at $20 a time. He agrees to the job but gives her only $10 a time. Picking up the drugs from the trailer where Donny cooks it, her first delivery is to biker Bill Owens (Purefoy), a meth dealer who acts as Frank’s distributor; unknown to Hannah, Bill has begun seeing Amber.

When some of the drugs Bill has been distributing prove to be cut with vitamins, he tells Frank about it and asks for compensation. When Frank refuses to pay, an argument breaks out between Bill’s buddy Jackson (Quigley) and Frank’s brother Bobby (Busey). Bobby is keen to hit back at Bill and Jackson for their being disrespectful but Frank needs Bill to continue distributing his meth. Nevertheless, Bobby kills Jackson and another of Bill’s associates, but Bill doesn’t retaliate. He tells Hannah (who he’s now befriended) that he doesn’t want a war. He’s also fallen in love with Amber and doesn’t want to jeopardise his relationship with her. Meanwhile, Hannah is trying to convince Donny to leave with her and Amber but he’s too afraid of what Frank will do if he does; he’s also addicted to the product he makes.

Things are brought to a head when Bobby, who has a crush on Amber, sees her with Bill. One night he goes to collect her at Frank’s request but she refuses to go. When he grabs her she fights back but Bobby overpowers her and beats her half to death before dumping her body outside town. When she wakes up in the hospital, Bobby pays her a visit and threatens to hurt Hannah if Amber says anything. But Hannah guesses the truth and seeks Bill’s help. He refuses though, leaving Hannah to seek revenge on her own, and set in motion a series of events that will either see her plan come to fruition, or find her dead at the hands of her uncle Frank.

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From its low-key opening, with Hannah playing chess against a little boy, to its downbeat ending at the trailer, Wicked Blood is a crime drama that aspires to be something more than just another tale of one person’s determination to break free from hometown ties. Hannah’s need to escape is highlighted by her serious demeanour: she finds it difficult to find any amusement in life, brushing off the attentions of a skateboarder with undisguised disdain, and being told by Donny that she doesn’t smile anymore. She relies on her plan, adapting it when necessary, refusing to let go of it, or come up with another one. The allusion to chess, that it’s not just a game, the same as Life, is firmly made, and Hannah’s focus is unwavering. It all adds up to a character who is entirely believable, despite her teenage years, and Hannah is ably brought to life by Breslin. It’s a strong performance, utterly credible and a clear indication that Breslin isn’t going to be one of those child actors that doesn’t make the transition to adult roles.

With such a strong central character it would be natural to expect a slight drop-off in the quality of the remaining individuals the movie is concerned with. But thanks to the quality of the script, courtesy of director Young, this isn’t the case. Frank is presented more as a businessman than a crime boss (though these days the two roles aren’t so dissimilar); for most of the movie he sits in a darkened office poring over balance sheets. It’s a given that he’s a hard man, but it’s a subtler performance from Bean than might be expected, and even when the expected outburst of violence occurs towards the movie’s end, it’s a tribute to Young’s script – and Bean as well – that Frank doesn’t just become a psycho with a gun. Equally memorable is Temple’s performance as drug-addled Donny, a man who recognises the dead end his life has become, and who clings to Hannah’s offer of a new life with a mixture of childish hope and diminished longing.

In comparison, Purefoy has the harder task of making Owens’ passivity credible, and it’s not until he makes an unexpected confession to Hannah that his reluctance to engage with Frank is fully understood. It’s a difficult role, and one of the few areas where the script doesn’t entirely convince, but Purefoy is such a good actor that he never quite loses the credibility the character needs. Amber is a secondary character, a little naive but with a good heart even if she and Hannah are at loggerheads like most sisters, and Vega brings a confidence to the role that makes Amber both level-headed and hopelessly romantic at the same time. As Bobby, Busey has the most generic role, that of slow-thinking muscle to Frank’s brains, but imbues the character with a kind of nervous puppy energy that makes Bobby scarily unpredictable.

The small-town milieu is well represented by a handful of recurring locations, and there’s an emotive score courtesy of Elia Cmiral. Young shows a liking for low-level camerawork which allows for several shots to stand out in terms of space and composition, and the violence, when it comes, is almost casually brutal yet effective. All in all, Wicked Blood is a well-paced drama whose only drawbacks are its predictability and its repeated use of chess as a metaphor for life, but thanks to Young’s assured handling of the material as a whole, it remains absorbing and potent throughout.

Rating: 7/10 – a well-worn idea given a spirited interpretation by Young, and bolstered by strong turns from its cast, Wicked Blood has a quiet, slow burn intensity that works well; easy to overlook considering how many other low-key crime dramas are out there, but definitely worth a look, and a rewarding one at that.