Review of Life of a King (2013) by Manu G — 21 Feb 2014

Think before you move.

Good Film! Cuba Gooding Jr. plays a wonderful part. I'm not a big fan of Cuba, but I thought this was a magnificent performance. He always has such a somber and sad look on his face that perfectly fits this role. The message the movie wants to tell, is that life is like a chess game. Once you understand and apply that to daily life, there are opportunities to escape the downward spiral. At times I found it very moving. But you have to admit that this is just an average movie with the usual clichés and predictable situations. This movie will finally end up on some TV channel that broadcasts more of this moralizing, with life stories filled, movies.

Life of a King is the unlikely true story of Eugene Brown and his one-man mission to give inner-city kids of Washington D.C. something he never had - a future. He discovered a multitude of life lessons through the game of chess during his 18-year incarceration for bank robbery. After his release and reentry into the workforce, Eugene developed and founded the Big Chair Chess Club to get kids off the streets and working towards lives they never believed they were capable of due to circumstances. From his daring introductory chess lessons to group of unruly high school students in detention to the development of the Club and the teens' first local chess competitions, this movie reveals his difficult, inspirational journey and how he changed the lives of a group of teens with no endgame.