Knight Moves

1992 "In a game of life and death... one wrong move could be his last..."
6.1| 1h56m| R| en
Details

A chess grandmaster is in a big tournament, and when his lover is found painted up and the blood drained out of her body he becomes a chief suspect. After he gets a call from the killer urging him to try and figure out the game, he cooperates with police and a psychologist to try and catch the killer, but doubts linger about the grandmaster's innocence as the string of grisly murders continues.

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Reviews

Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring
Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.
TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
gridoon2018 "Knight Moves" is one of the better thrillers of the early 1990s. It has an attention-grabbing opening, it's atmospherically directed, well-plotted (with at least one admirably effective red herring - I was fairly certain about who the killer would be, but I was wrong), it avoids gratuitous gore, and the music score (by Anne Dudley) is terrific. The film almost plays like a precursor to "Seven" and the other "serial killer teasing the police with riddles" thrillers that followed. My only major reservation: Christopher Lambert is not entirely convincing as an international chess grandmaster, which is probably the reason the film does not really focus as much on chess itself as it may appear to at first. **1/2 out of 4.
sol1218 **SPOILERS** It's not as if American Chess Grandmaster Peter Sanderson, Christopher Lambert, didn't have enough headaches in trying to defeat his arch-rival fellow Chess Grandmaster Lutz, Alex Diakun, in the "Tournament of Champions" in the out of the way town of Roxbridge in Washington State. He also gets himself involved in a string of grizzly murders that soon starts to effect his concentration. This leads Senderson to make a number of misplays and slip ups that almost cost him the final, or rubber, match with Lutz.It's very obvious that the person committing these killings has something very personal against Sanderson besides him being #1 in the world of American, as well as world, chess. Murdering as well as using young and beautiful women as chess pieces in this deadly and bizarre game of chess he's playing has his opponent Chess Grandmaster Sanderson become the #1 suspect in the murders that this lunatic is committing! That's the absurd an illogical conclusion that the towns two top "Keystone Kops", who very probably got their police badges out of a Crackerjacks box, Capt. Frank Sedman & Det. Andy Wagner, Tom Slerritt & Daniel Baldwin, come up with! Even though Sanderson as an alibi, in most cases Sedman & Wagner themselves, for where he was when the murders were committed!Crime suspense thrillers just don't get any better then "Knight Moves" in just how in your face and brazen it is in manipulating its audience. We know right from the very start that Sanderson is innocent of the crimes that he's charged with yet were, as well as Sanderson, boxed into a corner where it's almost impossible, even if we were on a jury, to be sure beyond a reasonable doubt that he didn't commit them! In that Sanderson comes across so guilty looking, as well as acting, that you suspect that he somehow committed the murders not psychically but through some kind of, by being in two places at the same time, telepathic or OBE, out of the body, experience!***SPOILER*** The killer leaves clues at the scenes of his crimes to what the real reasons-besides playing chess-for his murderous rampage is all abut that the smart as a whip, in being a Chess Grandmaster, Sanderson should have easily picked up. It's when all the pieces, or moves, finally fall into place it's not "smartly pants" Sanderson who finally figures who who this shadowy killer really is but it's the local police psychiatrist Kathy Sheppard, Dane Lane, who beats him to it! That leads to the grand final in the film as Sanderson and his opponent, the psycho killer, have it out with Sanderson's 10 year-old daughter Erica, Katharine Isabella, as the grand prize. In her being ritually murder with all her blood drained out, like all his other victims, by the psycho killer or rescued by her now wiser and smarter dad, in him finally getting it to who the killer is, Peter Sanderson!
Lazersetcetera This film is absurd hokum of the first water.Here is a sample line of the tense dialogue, delivered by Christopher 'The Method' Lambert: "I'm getting pretty close pal, and I'm gonna nail yo ass to the wall!".It is rubbish this one, watch it for a laugh but it's pretty dull so that might be tricky. Still there's stuff to look out for.1) Silly second guessing murderer/chess move plot. luckily the crime busting chess grandmaster Highlander is to the rescue. Cue lots of piffle about 'checkmate' and whatnot.2) Whatever happened to Diane Lane? A very attractive woman indeed, however she is in a shockingly unsexy sex scene with Lambo, all silk curtains over a pristine four poster.3) There's sundry other boring nonsense. And there's a bloke who looks like Tobey maguire in it but it might be TM, I didn't look so hard.Not recommended, except ironically maybe.
power-10 Knight moves is an extremely well-played movie, with some rather unknown actors. If you like thrillers, this one ought to be among your favorites... I highly recommend it (10/10)PS: Try to guess the identity of the killer...