Tetris

Director: Jon S. Baird
Starring: Taron Egerton, Nikita Yefremov, Sofia Lebedeva, Anthony Boyle, Ben Miles, Ken Yamamura, Igor Grabuzov, Oleg Shtefanko, Ayane Nagabuchi, Rick Yune, Roger Allam, Toby Jones, Togo Igawa, Matthew Marsh
Running Time: 118 min.
Rating: R

★★½ (out of ★★★★)  

Simple, straightforward and addictive, it's easy to see how Tetris became such a phenomenon during the mid to late 80's video game craze. The story behind its development and licensing is lesser known, as director Jon S. Baird attempts to make sense of its complicated journey to store shelves. The latest in a string of biopics focusing on big brand products, the script stretches the idea of creative license to its breaking point, as even the actual participants have candidly implied in interviews that some of the events here are either heavily exaggerated or flat-out didn't occur.

Those watching Tetris with even minor background knowledge of the game's origins will feel those Hollywood liberties being taken, which is nothing new for the genre and certainly doesn't disqualify it. But there is an inflated sense of frenetic urgency surrounding this, possibly stemming from concerns that a movie about video game rights might prove too dry for mainstream audiences. This justifiable concern results in an overcompensation of sorts, as the film succumbs to some wheeling and dealing messy enough to give viewers whiplash.

It's 1988 and Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton) of Bullet-Proof Software is in the midst of marketing his newest video game at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas when he notices another game called Tetris, created by Soviet programmer Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Yefremov). But while there Henk finds out that Robert Stein (Toby Jones) of Andromeda Software bought worldwide licensing rights from the Soviet government-owned ELORG. 

It turns out that Stein signed a contract with media magnate Robert Maxwell (Roger Allam) and his son, Mirrorsoft CEO, Kevin Maxwell (Anthony Boyle), enabling them to distribute the game in exchange for royalties. Unfortunately for them, Rogers also claims rights, having recently gotten another Mirrorsoft executive to sign off on the game for PC, console and arcade use. 

After Rogers proposes to Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi (Togo Igawa) that they co-produce the game for NES, the company's new Game Boy handheld device readies for launch, just as Sega and Atari also enter the fray. The battle between Rogers and the Maxwells come to a head in Moscow, as ELORG chairman Nikolai Belikov (Oleg Shtefanko) struggles to sort this out with the Soviet Communist Party and a scary KGB operative (Igor Grabuzov) breathing down his neck. Having leveraged everything he has on Tetris, Rogers needs a way to secure the rights and escape Russia alive, even while Pajitnov runs the risk of not seeing a penny from his own creation. 

Under ideal circumstances, a story based on real-life events this chaotic would be streamlined for viewers completely unfamiliar with what happened. And you'd figure that's a sizable majority, some of whom were likely prompted to check this out because it covers the origin of a popular, iconic video game they've played or maybe even grew up on. It's to the film's credit and detriment that it refuses to cut corners, giving us an agonizingly detailed look at all the business complications involved with the licensing. And are there ever a lot, with rights changing hands half a dozen times during about fifteen double crosses as Rogers desperately tries to finalize his deal. 

In a way, this turns out how many worried Ben Affleck's Air would, as both feature entrepreneurial disruptors bucking corporate culture to bring a game-changing product to the masses. Each comes with great personal and professional risk, but the key difference is that Tetris was getting released no matter what. Rogers saw an opportunity and pounced, while Sonny Vaccaro made his own by signing Michael Jordan to Nike. Without him there are no Air Jordans and the film goes to great lengths showing Sonny's vision for the brand. A game involving colorful interlocking blocks is a far cry from that, but it's still a commodity, and beyond Rogers staring at monitors in astonishment, we're rarely given glimpses into why he feels so strongly about it.

Regardless of Rogers' fascination with the game, Noah Pink's script effectively convey the stakes by showing the personal toll this obsession takes on his wife (Ayane Nagabuchi) and young daughters. But when the characters aren't bickering over contracts, it's mostly aiming to be a Cold War spy actioner, complete with a young Russian interpreter (Sofia Lebedeva), high-speed chases through the Moscow streets and even a Mikhail Gorbachev (Matthew Marsh) appearance. Of course, the Soviet leader knowing about the game, much less having a vested interest, requires a big suspension of disbelief. To Baird and his cast's credit, implausible moments like these do come across better than expected, even when getting lost in the minutiae of legal details. 

Moving briskly and incorporating a clever use of 8-bit animated effects throughout, Tetris ticks all the nostalgic boxes with its retro aesthetic and 80's soundtrack. It also contains a handful of solid performances, most notably from Egerton and some slightly lesser known faces. They carry this through some heavily comedic stretches before veering into dramatic territory that resembles a lesser Argo. Crafting a political thriller around the ownership of a video game was never going to be easy, but Tetris could have leveled up by instead exploring what actually went into its creation.