Found this review in Variety about a new movie coming out
in the UK in
January - a conspiracy thriller investigating the most
controversial
chess game ever played - between Garry Kasparov and IBM's
Deep Blue

Discuss...?
___________________________________
Variety.com

Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine(Docu)

An Odeon Films release (in Canada) of an Alliance Atlantis
and
National Film Board of Canada production of a World
Documentary Fund
film. Produced by Hal Vogel. Executive producers, Andre
Singer, Andy
Thomson, Nick Fraser, Paul Trijbits, Tom Perlmutter, Eric
Michel.
Directed by Vikram Jayanti.

With: Garry Kasparov, Frederic Friedel, Joel Benjamin,
Murray
Campbell, Feng Hsuing-Tsu, John Searle, Steven Levy, Owen
Williams,
Jeff Kisselhof.

By ROBERT KOEHLER

Vikram Jayanti's crackling "Game Over: Kasparov and the
Machine" plays
on the psychology and paranoia of grandmaster chess in
chronicling the
1997 match between Russian world champ Garry Kasparov and
IBM's Deep
Blue supercomputer. Though it never disguises its
sympathies for
Kasparov and contempt for a powerful corporation's
machinations, docu
is finally a speculation on the limits of the human mind
and how truth
can never be fully known. High drama will lead to strong
international
fest and B.O. interest, with many ancillary games to
follow.

Non-chess fans receive a compact backgrounder on Kasparov
(first seen
painfully revisiting the Gotham site of the match) and his
triumphant
career, including his dark-horse 1984 win over Anatoly
Karpov, which
seemed to presage changes to come in the USSR The IBM camp
is repped
by Deep Blue developers Murray Campbell and Feng
Hsuing-Tsu, as well
as grandmaster Joel Benjamin, hired by the company to
create gaming
scenarios for Deep Blue to play against Kasparov.

The first contest in 1996 was by all accounts a convivial
affair
designed as a creative science experiment, which Kasparov
won easily.
In retrospect, it's easy to sense overconfidence
contributed to his
undoing in the '97 rematch, but few could have foreseen
the extent to
which the machine was to advance in a year, or how the
game would turn
ugly and paranoid.

Jayanti's film cleverly -- if controversially -- lays out
a scenario
that has less to do with the advance of computer science
and more to
do with a nasty mix of bruised egos and corporate
arrogance run
amok.Pacing of each game builds to an intense pulse as
Kasparov first
wins, and then is so soundly defeated in game two that it
seems to
weaken him psychologically. As Kasparov views it, Deep
Blue's winning
moves transcended a machine's limits, raising the specter
of human
intervention. The pic runs with the accusation, spicing it
with
visuals of other famous chess-playing "machines" that
turned out to be
fronts for human players.

Though no proof of the charges is uncovered (and Benjamin,
Campbell
and Feng are mum on the subject), others, such as reporter
Jeff
Kisselhof, suggest IBM wanted to defeat Kasparov at all
costs as means
to prove company's computer supremacy. Pic notes more than
once that
IBM stock shot up 15% immediately after Kasparov retired
from the
match.

Coda plays an unsettling note, as IBM is seen dismantling
Deep Blue
after its victory, as if it existed solely to demoralize
the champ,
and Kasparov stumbles through a horrific defeat to his old
nemesis,
Karpov.
Production package, highlighted by David Hill's
hands-around-the-throat editing pace and Rob Lane's tense
synth score,
pushes pic into the docu field's commercial penthouse.

Camera (Duart color, DV-to-35mm), Maryse Alberti; editor,
David Hill;
music, Rob Lane; sound (Dolby Digital). Reviewed at
Toronto Film
Festival (Real to Reel), Sept. 5, 2003. Running time: 87
MIN.