I should first point out that I'm just a couple of ear hairs past novice level when it comes to chess, so I'm not a complete outsider to the subject at hand...just on the periphery. But I digress."Game Over" isn't a documentary so much as a position paper, the kind that an insecure college freshman with a chip on his shoulder would write for a first semester English class. (I should know.) There's tantalizing material here that the director, like a bad chess player, doesn't follow up on because he's fixated on other stuff that's more immediately gratifying. Mainly attacks.I'll get this out of the way now: the film is unapologetically biased. The director's reverential attitude toward Garry Kasparov and contempt for the IBM team comes through loud and clear in just about every frame. There is no ambiguity--no real ambiguity, just the "you decide" kind that's so common in those paranormal-themed TV shows on the Discovery Channel where you just know what *they* think the truth is. The film takes Kasparov's assertions at face value: *of course* IBM must have had human hands behind the scenes helping Deep Blue; they had to have been playing mind games to break him; naturally they wouldn't let him look at the logs--something fishy's going on! When the IBM boffins get the camera, every single one is made to look like an arrogant, lying sum'bitch. The conspiracy angle is played up and up, bolstered by the now well-noted creepy (and very annoying) whispering and cutaways to The Turk. Our director (no, I don't remember his name and would be too impatient to keep typing it) doesn't let up on hammering his point into our heads, and certainly doesn't provide us with sufficient material to truly make up our own minds about What Really Happened. I won't take sides on that subject, other than to say that nowadays the idea of a computer trouncing a top Grandmaster certainly doesn't seem very controversial to me, although at the time I can understand how Kasparov could have gotten freaked.So what we have here could have been a good hour or so program on one of those cable channels that specializes in nonfiction programming. Yes, I'm sure they could have pruned it down into a much tighter picture if they'd just lost all the superfluous Turk and eerie-corridor shots, not to mention annoying commentary from Kasparov's manager and others.But that's not what's really fascinating in this movie. Even without the kooky paranoia angle (except that which comes straight from Kasparov) we have a very compelling human drama waiting to be explored: man vs machine; man vs corporation; man vs his own ego, reputation, and past. Kasparov is an engaging and complex figure, cocky at the beginning, perplexed and frantic in the middle, and vulnerable and all too human at the end. The unbeatable met his match and it changed him irrevocably; the story of Kasparov vs Deep Blue is classic tragedy. Even the programming team didn't get to gloat. I would have liked to hear more about why, in the words of the lead Asian programmer, "it sucked".But villains don't get to tell their side of the story, and I doubt our director knew that he had a classic tragedy to tell, or even what tragedy is. (I also don't get much sense that he knows much about chess itself either.) In his hands, it's just plain old melodrama--based, as they say on TV, on a true story. Good guys, bad guys, and a lot of padding. I basically would have preferred if Kasparov and the IBM people would have just been allowed to tell their stories in their own way, they're clearly interesting enough subjects without the "help" of the director's editorializing...but WITH the help of position diagrams, commentary on the games themselves from chess masters, etc. That might have given even lay viewers some context, an appreciation of the deeply complex analysis over which gray matter grappled with silicon.It's reasonably well-made, though, from a technical standpoint. There's some nice camera-work and editing too, just not enough, and at the same time too much. Ponder what "Game Over" (no subtitle) would have looked like in the hands of, say, Frederick Wiseman. Just as an experiment.

I found this film to be interesting and entertaining. It has a style which is very reminiscent of Erroll Morris. It has been criticized for showing too much favoritism towards Kasparov, but I think most people do root for man over the machine. It is ironic that we are starting to see Russians as protagonists. We've come a long way since "Red Dawn." My main criticism of the film is that much like "Bowling for Columbine," it offers no real resolution. I think that is why it is a good doc as opposed to a great one. Kasparov is a very engaging figure with a strong cinematic presence. He is now involved with politics in Russia. Assuredly, if Ahnuld can make it, why not Kasparov?

In 1997 Kasparov, considered (according, that is, to this biased documentary), the greatest chess player in history, played a high profile match against an IMB supercomputer called Deep Blue devised for the sole purpose of not only playing world class chess but beating the greatest of grand masters -- in fact created specifically to beat Kasparov. The stakes were $700,000-$400,000, winner/loser. It can't be said that Deep Blue really beat Kasparov, who had beaten a simpler form of the computer several years earlier. What happened is that the second of the six games spooked Kasparov so much -- and he resigned, when later it was pointed out he might have achieved a draw -- that he never recovered psychologically, and by game six he was a psychological wreck, couldn't focus, and resigned, thereby losing the match.Surely Jayanti has a good subject: the human brain against artificial intelligence, the triumph of steely mindless machinery over brilliant, volatile intellectual genius. The filmmaker spoils his documentary by intruding too much with portentous music, gimmicky images of antique dolls, and by providing too little perspective outside the viewpoint of Kasparov himself, not even questioning the wild and unsubstantiated accusations that Kasparov throws out against IBM. There's still interest here, and so much at stake that it may be understandable that some (again wildly) have called this the best film about chess ever. Nonetheless that seems a bit of a misnomer given that there is so little specifically about chess and its moves -- though there is valuable and relevant information about the psychological pressures of great matches and the statistical complexity of the game itself.Kasparov's personality is lively and his English is good, but that is not enough in itself to counteract the gimmicky use of antique mechanical chess-playing dummies as a suggestive "echo" of the IMB mega-computer Deep Blue, the portentous music, the pseudo-spooky whispering voice-overs, and Jayanti's aforementioned refusal to challenge any claims Kasparov makes about the way things went or about his place in the history of world chess.Kasparov challenged Karpov in 1984-85 in a huge series of games, Armenian Jew against, as he saw it, the Soviet block -- a styling much favored (though the film does not note this obvious aspect) by Cold War attitudes in the United States -- and for his overall performance he had established himself as "the greatest chess player in history." (The many possible challenges to that claim are something the film doesn't go into for a moment.) In 1997 IBM, seeking to improve its stolid image against the livelier profiles of Microsoft and Apple, staged a hugely promoted New York six-game match between Kasparov and a newly improved and enlarged Deep Blue. They had six boffins lined up before and after each game, the chess and programming experts who were Deep Blue's handlers. Was that good strategy, lining up six grinning Asian and Caucasian nerds against one challenged Armenian Jew? Doubtful; and though at the end, IBM sternly directed its crew not to smile, that did little to offset its earlier displays of conspicuous nerdly smugness. IBM also maintained tight security around the emplacement of the large computer, and refused ever to release printouts of its operations to Kasparov. According to him, they promised to at the end, but never did.What happened is this: in game one, Deep Blue played like a machine, and Kasparov won easily. He thought that would continue. But in game two, he attempted a trick with pawns -- the film never goes into any detail about the actual chess moves and offers little of concrete interest to chess enthusiasts, but something that would normally lead a computer astray, into immediate profiting. But the machine didn't fall for it, and instead embarked on a mysterious and very humanoid-seeming grand strategy that put Kasparov in a very bad position. He was stunned. He overreacted, resigning as mentioned though later he realized he could have extracted a draw from the situation. From game two on, the champion became lastingly paranoid. And throughout the rest of the match, he never got over it. He suspected that some grand masters were assisting in deciding the moves of Deep Blue against him; and there were plenty of grand masters around, presumably in the employ of IBM. It's generally agreed, according to the film, that even a merely fine chess player, not necessarily world class, working together with a computer, could beat anybody. And that would not have been fair, and wasn't what was agreed upon. However, the film never provides a shred of evidence that IBM cheated in this way. All that's clear is that a machine doesn't lose its cool, and a human chess player very often does. Great a player as he is, Kasparov isn't cool. Someone remarks that he would make a terrible poker player, and in fact when things (in his view) are not going well, it is written all over his face and conspicuous in his body language. Kasparov, and Jayanti with his style, suggest that IBM's manipulations connect with Eighties YUPPIE thinking and corporate, Enron-style greed. But there is no proof of this. All that is clear is that IBM lacked finesse in its handling of the match, but profited much by it: stock went up in value 15% after this event. Where Kasparov is now isn't made very clear, but the film states that he is still playing and winning, against humans, and in 2003 tied in a match against the latest computer chess master, Deep Blue Junior, in Israel, and has met various challenges in recent years, been beaten, but still remains "the greatest." You can review Kasparov's chess history online at various sites. Kasparov is a great player. His role in world chess has been far more dubious than this documentary would have us believe. His full story, with all its pros and cons, has yet to be etched in celluloid.

Vikram Jayanti's documentary on the 1997 clash between IBM super-computer Deep Blue and Russian chess grand master Garry Kasparov is frustrating and fascinating in equal measure.Kasparov's insistence that IBM cheated (by using one or more chess masters to influence the computer during the match) seems perfectly possible, but the computer manufacturers refusal to allow either a rematch or analysis of their data makes it impossible to substantiate the claims. Sadly that doesn't stop Jayanti, his subjective approach is unaffected by the apparent stalemate.Fortunately the film has more to offer. The actual match becomes hugely dramatic and exciting in Jayanti's hands. Kasparov himself is an extremely enigmatic and passionate figure, the footage of him in the press conferences that took place after each of the six games is dynamite. In the second, he accuses IBM of cheating. In the last, after nine days of play, he appears on stage looking physically and mentally destroyed, the applause that greets him (and the boos for IBM) would seem to indicate a general feeling of suspicion of IBM's sportsmanship and honesty.Too subjective to be a 'great' documentary, it is still a fascinating insight into a game and community that would seem to offer much potential for future study.