Knight Moves

MPAA Rating: R

Entertainment: +3

Content: -2

KNIGHT MOVES is a suspenseful murder mystery intertwined with a chess tournament. Set in an island off Washington state, the story opens with a flashback to two young chess players. The game turns violent as the loser turns against the winner. The scene moves to the present, a world-class chess tournament. The expected champion, Peter Sanderson (Christopher Lambert), starts receiving anonymous, bizarre telephone calls about playing a new game of chess. The caller gives many mysterious clues relating chess with murder. Suddenly women start turning up dead with slit wrists, all across the island. Sanderson works with two detectives (Tom Skerritt and Daniel Baldwin) and a psychologist Kathy (Diane Lane) to try to unravel the clues from the phone calls. All leads, however, seem to point to Sanderson, who becomes the prime suspect. The gripping mystery continues, while Sanderson becomes attracted to the beautiful psychologist Diane. The murder game ends with a surprising twist. Although at times the actors could have spent another moment rehearsing, KNIGHT MOVES is a gripping psychological intrigue with a well-woven plot.

Nudity and sexually-suggestive scenes abruptly interrupt an otherwise spellbinding storyline. Although much of the movie centers on the act of murder, much of the violence is handled off-screen, with most of the corpses even being bloodless. The violence that occurs on screen is mainly for self-defense or as a progression of the plot. Ten obscenities mar the dialogue. The game of chess is compared to life: life is violent; the strong win, and the weak perish - but the game is to be played fairly. KNIGHT MOVES is a suspenseful thriller that is marred by obscenities, nudity and explicit sexual content.

Preview Reviewer: Alice Anderson
Distributor:
Republic Pictures

Summary
The following categories contain objective listings of film content which contribute to the subjective numeric Content ratings posted to the left and on the Home page.

Crude Language: Several (6) times - Mild (2); Moderate (4)

Obscene Language: Many (10) times (s-word 5, f-word 2, other 3)

Profanity: Exclamatory (1)

Violence: Many times - mostly moderate, four severe; (5 non-bloody corpses, 2 bloody corpses, beatings, razor slitting, prolonged violent ending)

Sex: Few times (2) (once, slightly obscured; once, implied)

Nudity: Few (2) times (slightly obscured female full frontal nudity, upper frontal nudity)

Sexual Dialogue/Gesture: Few times (fondling; foreplay; references to intercourse)

Drugs: Alcohol drinking once

Other: None

Running Time:
Intended Audience:


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