Review of Life of a King (2013) by Azeem H — 21 Apr 2015

A very enjoyable biopic of Eugene Brown, unfortunately it's nothing more than that, it's efficiently told, efficiently acted and perfunctorily written.

Basically Brown gets out of prison and blags his way into a school as a janitor and teaches the poor kids who all happen to be African American the game of Chess and that life is like chess. He meets several challenges along the way which results in him starting his own centre for chess (even poor schools can't have ex-cons on the payroll).

***SPOILER***.

The drama of this film is that one of the kids has got great talent that he goes all the way to the final of a major tournament and gives a chess grandmaster an almighty scare before being beaten (this is reality not an underdog triumph story).

I said it at the start I thoroughly enjoyed watching this film because one I like Cuba Gooding Jr and chess. Unfortunately it the tropes and beats it has are all rehashed from previous film regardless of whether or not this particular film is based on a real story. There are twists which can be seen from miles away, and there are some genuinely engaging performances including Cuba Gooding Jr, though it might have seemed more believable if the lead was played by Terrence Howard.

Overall an enjoyable film, just not quite good enough to get that extra 1/2 star to prevent it from being really good, instead it's solid and well told story.