It is near impossible for anybody under the age of 45 to grasp exactly how awful the USSR was. Imagine the most oppressive regimes on Earth – ones that stifled freedom of religion, thought, expression, economy, movement, and opposition of any kind – start with that. Then add arbitrary violence, a bleakness of landscape, outlook, and future. You might be thinking “Nazi Germany” and you wouldn’t be so far off. The rhetoric was there; the propaganda was there; the vile nationalism is there; the punishment is there as well. Now replace Nazi bigotry, pride, and occasional opulence with … nothing. Absolutely nothing. The USSR couldn’t house, clothe, or feed its people properly, but that didn’t stop it from raving about itself endlessly. Finally, add a piece of the puzzle even the Nazis never had: a massive inferiority complex combined with a pathological need to compete with the most powerful, richest, and most paranoid nation on the planet, the United States.
Imagine living the worst life you could live and being told if you don’t rave about it, you’re gonna be sent to someplace even worse – if that were possible. That was Soviet Russia. And that is the backdrop for Tetris, Russia’s greatest addition to electronic gaming.
If the story were only about the Soviet Union, it would neither be pleasant, nor interesting. At the time, empowerment was not a thing among Russian citizens, so capitalist concepts like personal gain, competition, incentive, and wealth were foreign to Soviet citizenry. That’s it in a nutshell, huh? Imagine being the Russian Thomas Edison knowing that whatever you invented, you’d likely neither get money nor credit for it. Hence our story is not about the inventor of Tetris, Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Yefremov), but about Dutch-Indonesian-American entrepreneur Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton), the man who tried to bring Tetris to Japan … and then the world.
Rogers was trying to push computerized Go at a software convention in the late-1980s. I suppose if you grew up hunting a wumpus or feeding imaginary citizens with bushels of corn, Go might seem like a computer revolution. Alas, even computer chess kinda sucks … and that’s a way better game than Go. As Go went, Rogers discovered Tetris, a simple block-stacking video game of Russian invention, and became hooked. Within ten minutes of screentime, Rogers has sold his entire life –including house, wife, and three daughters- into marketing Tetris, the next big thing.
The bad news is Rogers hadn’t the money to claim the rights, so he was constantly borrowing it from investors in his company and vision. The good news is nobody else owned the rights either because Mother Russia’s concept of intellectual property is not unlike Gollum with the one ring. So it’s very simple – all Henk has to do
to corner the market is go to Russia (where foreigners aren’t welcome), do business (where foreign influence is illegal), convince a company (where foreigners are not allowed to set foot), to sell him some rights (in a country that doesn’t do capitalism) that may-or-may-not be available because the state claims all property. Simple, huh?
And because Rogers has already sold wife, house, and fam downriver, he has no choice but to play this game that no Slav wants him to play. Oh, and once he hits the Soviet Union, he’s a marked man, as all “tourists” are. You think Brittney Griner had it bad? The Soviet Union of 1988 was tenfold more oppressive than the one Vladimir Putin operates today.
Tetris is intense. Like, way more than the actual game. It’s the difference between playing a video game and, you know, escaping the secret police. The film does have some fun, deliberately animating certain sequences with 8-bit nostalgia and titling its acts “Level 1”, “Level 2”, etc. Mostly, I got a feel, well, a reminder, of how terrible Russia was under the hammer-n-sickle flag. Again, it cannot be discounted how much this country sucked. It’s no wonder the hilariously flawed United States won the Cold War. Capitalism may suck, but this mock society was a half-step up from slavery for all. Ironically, this film makes a good companion piece not with Super Mario Bros (Nintendo plays a healthy part in the Tetris plot), but with BlackBerry a film about the cell phone revolution in the hands of neophytes. Both are films about little guys way in over their heads and desperately trying to make it because –really- they have no choice. Good film. Thumbs up achieved.
Marketing Tetris was his plan to concoct
When Rogers found the level was locked
Can he slough off the blame
And get Russia in the game
Or will his endeavors forever be blocked?
Rated R, 118 Minutes
Director: Jon S. Baird
Writer: Noah Pink
Genre: Super Mario Brothers, but for, you know, adults
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who loathe(d) the USSR
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Vladimir Putin
