The two main roles in this movie — and they are the only roles, really — are played by Gene Hackman and Matt Dillon, good for two Oscars and six Oscar nominations between the two.1 That’s not a superfluous luxury, because the plot and title are as generic as a gray Toyota. A father doesn’t get along very well with his son,2 but then his wife gets kidnapped while on holiday in Paris and they have to get her back. They will have to work together.
Some half an hour into the movie, they’re sitting in a cafe somewhere talking the situation over. The son is very upset with his dad, who is in turn quite annoyed with him. It’s all quite tense. And the director takes the wise decision to take a step back, because then the barman comes into view, and he’s studying a chessboard.
But he doesn’t zoom in on the board. Perhaps some misplaced feeling of embarrassment keeps him from leaving the main characters out of shot:3
This reconstruction is quite dubious. I’m quite sure about the identities of the pieces, with the exception of the two knights. I’m quite unsure, however, about the exact position. I’m even not completely sure whether the board is not perhaps rotated a quarter turn — or two, even.
But here the camera man finally caves and cuts back to Hackman and Dillon. And that, of course, is why this movie has only a 5.9 on IMDB.
Realism: 3/5 I guess this is not too ridiculous. I could see a blitz game deteriorate like this in a frantic time scramble. But its score would probably go down with every minute I look at it, so I will not do that.
Probable winner: Whoever’s to move, I guess? Although if this really comes from a time scramble, anything could happen. But I bet nothing is going to happen. I bet this game is already over. After all, why would there only be one player? Why would the board be on top of the bar? The barman was probably playing a friendly blitz game with a customer, who has now left.
1. [Admittedly, five of those are Hackman’s.] ↩
2. [His son is probably a solther.] ↩
3. [I have a very well-placed feeling of embarrassment if I were to leave out a link to this diagram editor.] ↩