Shadows on the Wall

Tetris

dir Jon S Baird
scr Noah Pink
prd Matthew Vaughn, Gillian Berrie, Claudia Vaughn, Len Blavatnik, Gregor Cameron
with Taron Egerton, Nikita Efremov, Roger Allam, Toby Jones, Sofya Lebedeva, Anthony Boyle, Ben Miles, Ken Yamamura, Igor Grabuzov, Oleg Shtefanko, Ayane Nagabuchi, Rick Yune
release US/UK 31.Mar.23
23/UK Apple 1h58

Is it streaming?

Recounting the astonishing true story behind the addictive arcade game, this lively film inventively mixes late-1980s global politics with technological innovation. The film isolates a point in time when videogaming was an explosive new idea, so pretty much everything is groundbreaking. Stirring action and intrigue, cool period detail and layered characters, gifted director Jon S Baird manages to make a series of negotiations both fascinating and riotously entertaining.

When he first played Tetris in 1988, Henk Rogers (Egerton) knew he'd discovered the perfect game. Invented by Soviet government employee Alexey Pajitnov (Efremov), it spread throughout Russia and was licensed by British businessman Robert (Jones), alongside Robert Maxwell (Allam). Meanwhile, Henk is working with Nintendo's team (Miles and Yamamura) to develop the game. To sort out lingering questions about the rights, Henk travels behind the Iron Curtain to meet Alexey. But the KGB boss (Grabuzov) doesn't trust foreigners, especially if they want to buy something. And he also threatens Henk's wife (Nagabuchi) back home.

With a story that's already complex as the film opens, Pink's script and Baird's direction keep everything moving briskly through various entanglements as people hash out contracts and develop new technologies. A lot of money is at stake, and political issues create wrinkles. Baird punctuates the story with colourful vintage arcade imagery as events pings between Tokyo, Seattle, London and Moscow, which is in its own isolated world and doesn't play by the rules. So things get increasingly nasty, leading to some hair-raising action.

Egerton brings charisma and tenacity to the witty and quick-thinking Henk, who is Dutch and lives in Japan, which makes him a mystery to the amusingly humourless Soviet officials (including Lebedeva and Shtefanko) who close in around him. But he finds commonality with Efremov's intriguingly textured Alexey. Allam is terrific as the blustering Maxwell, especially in amusing scenes with both Jones and Boyle (as his son Kevin). And Nagabuchi adds depth to what's little more than the annoyed wife role.

Set at a precarious time in the Soviet Union, the story cleverly plays on both internal and international politics without letting them take over the narrative. Even so, the intrigue that fills each scene is riveting, mainly because the story is packed with lively characters who have complex motivations. This is a snappy, entertaining film about a scrabble for cash at a moment in history that was pivotal for a variety of reasons. And it's even more engaging as a story about playing fair.

themes, language, violence 31.Mar.23

R E A D E R R E V I E W S

Still waiting for your comments ... don't be shy.