Review (Scott Mc Cutcheon 30/03/23)

Fact is often stranger than fiction and so it proves in director Jon S. Baird’s highly engrossing and original Tetris. Part Bridge of Spies, the Tom Hanks film from 2015, and part John le Carré. Tetris is the intriguing story of how one of the world’s a video games managed to make its way out of Russia and became one of the most successful games in history.

Taron Egerton plays Henk Rogers, a Dutch Video game designer and entrepreneur, who in 1988, at the time the Soviet Union was imploding, fought to buy the licence of Tetris from the Russian authorities.

Most of Tetris is set in Russia, parts of Scotland standing in for Russian territory, where a trio of bidders, Rogers, Robert Stein (Toby Jones) and Robert Maxwell (Roger Allam) and his son Kevin (Anthony Boyle), are being played against each other by the Russian bureaucrats who are all out to get what they can from the deal for themselves.

Jon S. Baird and his scriptwriters’ tell us at the very beginning of Tetris that it is based on true events. Loosely based on true events would have probably been more accurate as whereas the wheeling dealing and double crosses are all based on fact. Baird can’t resist adding some Hollywood licence to the story with an explosive and visually stunning chase at the end that wouldn’t look out of place in a Fast and Furious film.

With a wonderful performance from Taron Egerton, Tetris is a hugely enjoyable spy film that will keep you sitting on the edge of your seat.

Recommended

4/5


Tetris

1h 58m

Director: Jon S. Baird
Cast: Taron Egerton, Nikita Efremov, Toby Jones, Sofia Lebedeva, Anthony Boyle, Ben Miles, Ken Yamamura, Igor Grabuzov, Oleg Shtefanko, Ayane Nagabuchi

Release: Apple TV+ 31st March 2023