hyped garbage

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

This film begins with a young boy playing in a chess match and then physically attacking his opponent upon losing the game. After being hospitalized he is released to the custody of his mentally ill mother who is told that he must abstain from playing chess from now on. Not long afterward, he discovers blood dripping from the ceiling and upon investigation notices his mother bleeding profusely in her bed and then weakly asking him to help her. But rather than helping, he chooses to open up the night stand by the bed and pulls out the chessboard that he had been deprived of and calmly helps himself to some milk and cookies before beginning a new game. The scene then shifts to twenty years later with a European Grandmaster named "Peter Sanderson" (Christopher Lambert) participating in a tournament when his lover is found in bed totally drained of blood with a sign above her body saying "Remember". And because of his connection to this woman Peter Sanderson is a prime suspect. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an entertaining movie for the most part with both Christopher Lambert and Diane Lane (as "Kathy Sheppard") performing in a fine manner. I especially liked the way in which the mystery was sustained up until the final moments. On the other hand, the way some of the chess players were depicted as being mentally unstable was somewhat overdone. Neither did I care for the rather obvious allusions to Bobby Fischer in the introduction of Peter Sanderson. Even so, I still enjoyed this film and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

**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!

Excellent film who-dunnit. The setting of a chess tournament as a backdrop for the various murders is unusual. Constantly kept guessing as to whether the "hero" is in fact the murderer, until the very end where the killer is revealed.Christopher Lambert as the chess master plays out his anguish well as the evidence pointing to him builds to the point where the police believe he did it. The slips of the tongue from Lambert also give the impression he 'could' be the killer... But is he? Diane Lane is good as usual, not a lot is asked of Tom Skerrit so he doesn't give a lot as the police chief. Baldwin is good as the prejudiced cop who takes a serious dislike to Lambert's character.Worth watching the first time for your own pleasure. Watch it a second time with someone who hasn't seen it before to see their reactions to the mystery!

A psychopath uses the game of chess as a blueprint for a series of brutal murders, in this stylish 1992 film directed by Carl Schenkel. Cinematography, sound effects, scary music, and sparse dialogue combine to create an atmosphere of terror, suggestive of the "giallos" of Dario Argento.We see the killer's black gloved hands; we see the flashlight shining in the darkened room of the next victim; we hear the killer's breathing through a mask. And in these scenes, absence of dialogue amplifies the surreal, menacing presence of the killer.Suspense scenes alternate with scenes of mundane normalcy, which gives the viewer a chance to select the murderer from a pool of suspects whose behavior appear more or less normal. But beware; there are plenty of plot twists and false clues. The whodunit element kept me guessing and unsure; the film's suspense kept me fully engaged.Acting quality is average. Diane Lane gives perhaps the most convincing performance of the bunch. My main criticism is the screenplay. In any murder mystery, the viewer needs enough information to have a fair chance at solving the whodunit puzzle. But in "Knight Moves", crucial details are left out. Also, several characters are poorly defined; we know almost nothing about them. Moreover, in several key scenes, the behavior of one of the main characters is not credible, given the story's underlying premise.As a result, it's going to be almost impossible for the viewer to identify the killer, based solely on the plot. A script re-write, with more emphasis on character development, combined with the deletion of superfluous scenes would, I think, have made for a more satisfying whodunit puzzle.Even so, I recommend "Knight Moves" as a most frightening and spine-tingling suspense thriller. For maximum effect, try watching it alone, in a mansion, at night with the lights turned out, during a thunderstorm.