The story of how Tetris made its way onto the Nintendo Gameboy and became the biggest selling game of all time is laid out in this drama that is part The Social Network and part Cold War thriller. 

Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton) is a Dutch businessman who grew up in America and now lives in Japan. Whilst at a computer game show in Las Vegas he finds little interest in his game version of “Go” but finds himself drawn to a Russian game called Tetris at another stall. Immediately aware of its brilliance he enquires as to the licensing rights and what follows is a labyrinthine web of meetings and slicing and dicing of licenses. 

Slicing a games rights into Personal Computer, Consoles, Handheld and then territory may not seem particularly exciting but that is ultimately the main plot of this film and it’s put together in a pretty fun manner. Henk is the family man who is putting his house on the line, whilst there are communist KGB agents who want the best for their regime (and themselves in some instances) and Robert Maxwell’s empire doing the same for theirs. Not to forget Robert Stein (Toby Jones) running around in the middle thinking he already had the deal wrapped up. 

The film is at its best when these men in suits are trying to get one up on the other and are in meeting rooms arguing about what they can offer each other. It was a lot of fun to see the corruption from both the Communists and the Capitalists on show as well. It never comes close to the levels of The Social Network though which seems to be where it was aiming. 

Elsewhere it has a lot of incongruous and pedestrian elements that never really work. Henk’s developing friendship with the games creator (Nikita Efremov) never feels real and nor does his family life where extra children seem to pop up every time you see them in the opening sections of the film. Whilst the race to their airport and threat from the KGB at the end feels a little “Wacky Races” and not menacing at all. 

Taron Egerton is charismatic enough to keep your attention and things running along nicely but overall it’s an entertaining film but not a spectacular one. 

Hold on for some home video footage of Henk’s real trip to Russia in the credits.