The Coldest Game (2019)

★★

During 1962's Cuban missile crisis, a troubled math genius finds himself drafted to play in a U.S.-Soviet chess match -- and a deadly game of espionage.

Classification: 15

A good chess match can be quite the experience, two exceptional minds constantly testing and pushing their opponent's strategic limits as sacrifice and gambit makes for a compelling cerebral battleground. The game is synonymous for intelligence, sophistication, a metaphor for the struggle of life as each move could be your last and has been used as a motif in The Seventh Seal, Blade Runner and more popular films such as X-Men and Harry Potter. Essentially if chess is used correctly it can be a fascinating motif for a film's characters to argue and debate their narrative themes, but with The Coldest Game writer-director, Łukasz Kośmicki uses it as an uninspired analogy for the Cold War.

A fictitious story using one of history's tensest moments as a backdrop, Bill Pullman stars as a washed-up but brilliant mathematician Dr Joshua Mansky, an alcoholic former chess champion recruited by the CIA to play a chess match against the Soviet champion at a game in Warsaw. It is revealed that the game is a front for both the CIA and KGB to uncover information about both sides strategies concerning the Cuban Missile Crisis and that both sides appear to have moles feeding information to the other side. For both the Americans and the Soviets, Mansky is the only man who can be trusted as his involvement comes after the apparent assassination of the American's former chess champion. Kośmicki's vision for his film is very heightened TV movie chic, as while Pullman delivers a competent if clichéd performance of a troubled maverick genius the rest of The Coldest Game feels tonally inconsistent and overly reliant on tropes. The film wants to present itself as a 'hidden history', while Mansky and his actions are entirely fabricated, Kośmicki litters the film with references and similarities to try and give the film historical credence for the audience to raise the stakes. That this could be what happened but it had to be covered up although nothing about Kośmicki's direction lends itself to that notion.

The realism doesn't necessarily work as the elements of the film beyond the chess match (due to Pullman's familiar charisma makes them engaging to watch), everything else divulges into hackneyed spy drama staples. Codewords, double agents, secret passageways, doublecrosses, microfilm, time limits, vodka! all become apparent as Mansky becomes involved deeper into the espionage, pushing his fragile psyche to the limit. The Coldest Game also packs its runtime with as much Cold War imagery as it can (including dilapidated eastern block cities, Soviet army uniforms, and of course war rooms with generals pushing toy ships with a large stick) and what makes it tonally inconsistent is how the film wants to portray the reality of the danger through these tired ideas. Moments of non-diegetic music playing over montages (I think they played a pop song during a chess montage, it was so offputting) and clichéd moments of action to try and give the film excitement just feels like an off-brand cobbled together version of more prestige Cold War Dramas. Pullman is the draw of the film, his performance can become predictable at times when the script goes for the more outlandish spy moments but he never seems to be phoning it in. So while The Coldest Game relies on the most basic of spy thriller ideas to get by, Pullman can elevate it only such to the whole film isn't an entire waste of time.

In fact, it's a shame that Kośmicki committed to trying to make his film seem like a true story and not lean into the hackneyed tone. Not to undercut the severity of the Cuban Missile Crisis or the American-Soviet conflict but mostly to provide a more consistent approach to the film. The story beats in the film are outlandish, while chess matches between America and the USSR were a staple in history (Mansky's likely inspired by 1972 American champion Bobby Fisher) without actual historical accuracy to back up The Coldest Game's most dramatic moments it can all seem a little silly and unbelievable. By embracing the fictitious approach, Mansky's story could be more acceptable to the pallet instead of this offputting faux-history.

Kośmicki wants the film to be a parable on the danger of nuclear weapons and how close mankind has come to destroying itself, not something that is driven home very well by either the script or direction despite the whole plot revolving around the threat of nuclear armageddon.

Unclear messaging, muted thrills and while an exaggerated Bill Pullman performance is always part of a recipe for a good time, The Coldest Game just weighs it down too much in its banality. The American-Soviet chess matches have great potential for narrative and thematic debate over examining the Cold War and its effects on our cultures but Kośmicki's dependence on old fashioned spy tropes breaks any immersion and has Mansky's life or death game feel like another TV movie of the week.

Director: #ŁukaszKośmicki

Screenwriter: #ŁukaszKośmicki and #MarcelSawicki

Cast: #BillPullman, #LotteVerbeek, #JamesBloor, #RobertWięckiewicz, #CoreyJohnson