It may be one of our greatest games, but chess just wasn't made for celluloid. A smart checkmate, then, to helmer Vikram Jayanti, whose documentary plays out as a compelling conspiracy thriller. Game Over recounts the bitter battle between Garry Kasparov - the grandest of grand masters - - and IBM super-computer Deep Blue. In their 1997 rematch, man was mauled by machine. But was this a case of cyber-supremacy or did Deep Blue receive a helping hack from shadowy corporate geeks?
Jayanti keeps the mood unsettled with sinister tracking shots, whispered voiceover narration and nods to Kubrick's 2001 (Deep Blue's depicted as part HAL, part black monolith). But this is also an absorbing portrait of a legendary knight-mover, Kasparov emerging as a genius derailed by paranoia and haunted by defeat. You get the odd dry chuckle, too: "The future of humanity is on the line," deadpans an American newscaster. "Now the weather."
