Checkmate (I) (2015) User Reviews

A painfully bad standoff between terrible characters, and the only victim here is the audience.

[quincytheodore · 2/10 · 4 September 2015]

It's funny that the movie references chess for its title, because there's barely any hint of intelligent present. Ambitiously, it mixes many subplots and alternating timelines together even though Checkmate can't even get one perspective right. Underutilized actors, excessive amount of profanity and utter lack of logic make this movie into a terribly sketchy experience.

Story revolves around the events of a bank heist. Unlike recent thrillers where there's a clear plan, Checkmate goes old school with mask and gun through the front door. There are a lot of subplots slapped together for any dramatic effect. They can't all miss their marks, right? Sadly, and incredibly, they can.

It's nearly amazing that not one character feels believable. You have the sniper priest, desperate thugs, mafia kingpins and poor sick kid, all of which have zero on-screen credibility. The pacing is completely off, it might try to shift between different perspectives for better development, but the shoddy delivery only makes narrative worse.

Script is all kind of swearwords. The most used lines are variation of "F this, F that". I'm not kidding, it's literally repetition of F-bomb while a few of more notable actors like Danny Glover and Vinnie Jones spew gibberish from facebook cat poster or random quote book. You'll hear crude profanity or pretentious bible quote for the entire movie as well as screeching repetitive soundtracks.

Then, there's the problem of the logic. The robbers put on their mask on the step of the back where camera and witness might spot them. They voluntarily run away from cover and shoot a la Rambo. There are so many things wrong with the logic, but the movie just brushes it off as though audience wouldn't notice.

Checkmate plays with mindless plots and dribbling profanity. It's a chain of awful sequences thrown randomly together that deserves no viewing.

Step away from the movie

[dot9000 · 2/10 · 28 December 2015]

I simply cannot put into words how absolutely, positively horrible this movie is. The acting is utterly laughable (and I don't mean in a cute, spoofy way), the scenes unbelievable and every other word is a swear. Police that can't contain a crime scene or shoot, robbers that don't rob and many hacked together scenes, all thrown in as if it was a pot of chicken soup and would somehow magically all turn out lovely and delicious in the end. It's too bad, this pot is full of inedible garbage that even the toughest iron gut would spew out immediately. I wondered if Danny Glover owed someone a favor and that's why he did this film. It's the only reason that makes any sense. Unfortunately, even he can't save this stinky bomb. Please don't waste your time on this one - it is truly too bad to describe.

Bad film you should watch

[eddiewareing · 2/10 · 17 October 2016]

I recommend watching this movie just so you can judge for yourself how bad it really is, five famous people in it but nobody did any good acting, that said, it had interesting ideas which kept my girlfriend and I watching it all the way through, I like how everything converged at the end but ultimately the bad acting ruined the entire movie.

Vinnie Jones does yet another bad film, Mischa Barton didn't do anything, Sean Astin was an interesting character but could have been better, Michael Pare hasn't improved since the eighties (loved Streets of Rage 1984) I got the impression the helicopter was the shadow of a cardboard cut out, I could go on but I think you need to see it for yourself, I gave it a 2 because it did keep me watching

The bottomless pit.

[nyrn · 1/10 · 3 September 2015]

Unfortunately no amount of f-words can save this immature and epicly sad excuse of a movie. We all have to pay the rent, I get that. Sometimes it just hurts to watch it happen. Checkmate tries to be so bad-ass it falls flat on its face from the very first frame. Disconnected plot, no character development, crazy amount of cuss words, words of wisdom outtro etc. The turkeylist goes on. How did Glover and Aston even end up in this mess? I would seriously think a seventh grader could put together a more interesting script. This is by far the worst film I've seen the last 10 years. We're not talking funny bad here either. Low budget just got a new low - and I'm not even gonna comment on the girl with the samurai sword.

Stupid plot, Stupid dialog, Disconnected sub-stories

[LumpyMusic · 1/10 · 1 September 2015]

This movie is almost worth watching just to see how ridiculously bad it is.

Every 3rd word or so is an F bomb. That wouldn't be a problem if there was some kind of reason for it or if it were in context. But it's not. It's like the director just said "Throw in a lot of F's just to shock the viewer".

Catholilc priest is a sniper hit-man. Seems totally out of context to the movie. But there doesn't seem to be much "context" to the movie at all anyway.

Two guys playing high stakes chess for some kind of document that might be something like "Immortality". The "Devil" guy that loses the game has thugs with guns that can't beat a chick with a samurai sword. So after those thugs get beat up he calls on his "back up thugs" which consists of people in bathing suits wearing devil Halloween masks. Needless to say the devil aspect has no context to the movie either.

Chick flies a Robinson helicopter with something like a sailboat tiller in reverse. Then in another shot she has some kind of steering wheel.

SWAT team...Couple dozen cops can't shoot a guy standing in the open on the roof. In all fairness, that guy, with his automatic sub-gun, can't hit any of the cops either. Cops fail to notice the bad guy sniper on the roof, the priest sniper in the building across the street nor the bad guy getaway van with two thugs parked in plain view.

None of the actors seemed like they had any lines. It's like some director grabbed anyone off the sound stage and said "OK, sit here, pick up the phone and say something like ""Put me through to Captain""..." The incorrect grammar in my above actual line was deliberate. It's the actual line.

If the acting had been great, it would almost be like a really good parody movie, like "Airplane" or "Police Story" one of the Mel Brooks movies. But the acting sucked. The technical believability sucked. The continuity sucked. And the actors all looked like someone they rounded up at the last minute and offered them lunch if they'd be in the movie.

WARNING!!...Do Not Touch

[kmichaelpm · 1/10 · 3 September 2015]

This rubbish is so bad that I was not going to write a review, as I did not think I would be able to put how bad it is into words.

However, I felt that it was important to warm my fellow humans, and so decided to try.

If I said that a bunch of schoolchildren could do better, I would be insulting all schoolchildren everywhere.

If you compared this rubbish to the first day of an acting school course, you would expect that the lecturer would have gone out the back and committed suicide half way through, just to avoid the second half. 80% of the dialogue consists of the word f#ck....and all it's derivatives.

Not only is there no story, but what there is is so confusing as to be a health hazard. Do not even look for acting. It simply is non existent. Please, do not be duped by the inclusion of Danny Glover and Vinnie Jones. At this point, moviegoers must accept that if either one or both of them are in a movie that it is a very good reason to avoid it at all costs. They are not even trying to hide the fact anymore that they are simply selling their names to absolute rubbish, and are quite happy to walk away with a fat cheque, and could not give a damn about their fans. It is truly sad.

Please....please...do not be tempted to spend hard earned cash on this tripe, just so these idiots can laugh all the way to the bank. You will never forgive yourself for wasting precious time and money on the worst trash ever to hit the screen.

Took pains to register and comment

[yaarodinamalar · 1/10 · 9 December 2015]

**** The movie is plain awful **** It was on Netflix, saw Danny Glover and expected something. What an unbearable movie. Normally I read the reviews and STOP. I never like to post any commentary. This time, the movie was so horrible, I broke my promise to myself, created an Yahoo! ID, confirmed it and created the IMDb id, confirmed it and then typed it. I am so determined to post this so that no one goes through the horror of watching this movie. Waterboarding may not be this horrible. And what is with the F* bombs, is it supposed to make them look 'bad'. Their acting (or lack of that) ensures that they are bad. What a horrible piece of movie. They could have sent the money on this to some charity organization. Is this a piece done for some laundering ?

Don't waste your time

[Hammer-Rocks · 1/10 · 19 July 2016]

A B-grade movie and a bad one at that. The film obviously had a small budget and it showed.

The film lacked atmosphere. There was no ambiance of background sounds, noise etc. The scenes outdoors where far too quiet. Plus where is the public? There were no people seen in the background. Making the scenes look obvious they were filed in a studio (rather than on location).

And what's worse than the acting was the lack of basic FX. Wait, I change that, the acting was worse.

Don't waste one and half hours of your time watching this. That time is better spent watching the grass grow.

I watched it for free and it wasn't worth the money.

[thetaz00 · 1/10 · 10 September 2015]

I couldn't think of a good way to word it until I read what Author: LumpyMusic from Phoenix Arizona USA said. "Disconnected sub-stories" is the bottom line. One story two guys playing chess signing a document. Then their is the girl with the sword who fights everyone else with a sword or stick. Then you have the bank robbery with nothing but guns. I can't put two and two together and figure what they have in common. I thought with the popular cast members it would be a good A movie maybe even an A-. I was wrong, it wasn't even a good B movie. Are there such things as a C movie? Because if there is I wouldn't even give it a C. It get a big fat F from me for failed.

waste of time, a mild expression, a choice 4 letter swear word could be used

[elavigne7885 · 1/10 · 7 September 2015]

Danny Glover, a good actor, many fine performances in the past, must be in need of money to associate his name with this piece of trash. I am sure this film will never be shown in any cinema, in any European country, the United States, Canada, Australia, etc. This is one of those films, here today,gone tomorrow, forget it ever existed. If this film is released on DVD, in your neighbourhood, avoid it like the plague. So far all the reviews, I have read, before my review, have stated similar reviews. Danny Glover, true, their may not be too many roles out in the film industry for you to star in, but do not perform in these type of films.

Checkers

[krazysoon · 10/10 · 18 December 2020]

This had to be one of the best movies of 2015. Danny Glover and Sean Astin were superb. The film is action packed with some comedy thrown in there. I didn't know what to expect coming into the movie so my expectations were low. Now that I've watched it, I expect every movie I watch to be the same high quality standard. It's currently available on Amazon Prime so I'd advise you check it out. I don't understand the negative reviews. It makes zero sense to dislike a film of this magnitude. Lastly, I'm now a fan of Vinnie Jones. I always thought he was a knockoff Jason Statham but not anymore. He put his heart into this role. Enjoy the movie

Metaphysical fiction a la Night Gallery

[logopolis · 6/10 · 15 December 2015]

Einstein once said "God doesn't play dice", here God (Danny Glover ) plays chess with pure evil Lu (Vinnie Jones ) for the soul of a wayward priest (Sean Astin). Their chess board is projected into the real world as a neighborhood bank under siege. The chess pieces are projected into the real world as bank robbers (black) and bank customers (white). Pieces are moved and people perform actions. Pieces are captured and people die. Not a great movie but I'd give it a good C+. Lenses and sound are good, directing and cinematography are good. Dialogue and acting fair. I watched it, I liked it. I would have enjoyed it more if I had understood the purpose of the contest earlier.

Worst Movie I've Ever Seen

[spikejonze74 · 1/10 · 4 September 2021]

I'd rather watch monkeys at a zoo throw fecal matter at each other. Danny Glover should be ashamed of himself for aligning his star power with this garbage.

Director and Story writers are just STUPID

[mloke · 1/10 · 22 September 2015]

The story did not make any sense about what everybody was doing. Its like 4 independent plots no connection what so ever. I hope the guys/girls who wrote this story better stay away from writing. The director is another idiot did not know how to connect the plots. Yuck !!!!!!! Waste of my time. Whoever, invested the money should have been more careful and fire the entire staff and could have saved their money. May be the real reason to produce such movies is to loose money so that they can make some black money white. I have to go watch a good movie now so that I can clear my head. Stay away from this movie and save your time. I hope Hollywood would be careful stop such stupid movies in the future.

A movie with a great idea that ultimately did nothing with it. Very disappointing and hard to stay focused on.

[cosmo_tiger · 3/10 · 7 September 2015]

"The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man." Six people are involved in a bank heist where one wrong move could be deadly. The criminals and the police all make strategic moves in hopes of ending the standoff and coming out on top. The longer the standoff goes on the greater the chance of disaster. This is a movie that had such a neat element to it that I thought this could be really neat. Essentially Glover and Jones play God and the Devil. Every move they make on the board affects how the events unfold. Unfortunately the idea was much much better than the movie. The movie really ran out of steam pretty quickly and became something that was way to slow and generic to stay focused on. Overall, a movie with a great idea that ultimately did nothing with it. Very disappointing and hard to stay focused on. The type of movie you forget as you are watching. I give this a C-.

i want 90 minutes of my life back

[paulgeite · 1/10 · 11 October 2015]

I was under the impression that Aeon Flux was the worst film ever made until i watched this shambles of a movie. A good casting for an atrocious film. Weak plot line, far too many sub plots and although this was low budget, it could not have been worse if my 5 year old son had been responsible for writing it. The whole good versus evil aspect was far too over-exaggerated, and for actors like Jones and Glover, it was incredibly unconvincing.

To sum up, if you want to waste 97 minutes of your life on a film that has absolutely no place in the modern world, then watch this. However, if you have any brain cells and even a microscopic amount of intelligence then avoid this at all costs.

The worst movie ever!

[Thewordsman · 1/10 · 7 October 2016]

With so many stars in this movie, I expected far more than the awful spectacle I watched which can not be even remotely called a movie as a "movie" typically has a beginning building of the plot that is followed up with the action portion of the story line, filled with some sort of energy until the end which is supposed to be the grand finale.

I do not know how or why Danny Glover, Vinny Jones, or Sean Astin could every allow their names or reputation as "real" actors become sullied with this horrendous amateur production. I get the premise of God (or Good) triumphing over evil, but from beginning to the end of this so called the movie, it had absolutely no direction or real balance at all...I suppose that there must have been a reason that the stars of this movie allowed it to be released the way it was...all I can say it was the worst movie I have seen in years!!!! avoid it at all costs!

Yes, it's terrible

[HotToastyRag · 1/10 · 4 October 2021]

If you're the type of person who likes to have a movie on for background noise as you're doing something else, like a jigsaw puzzle, your grocery list, cleaning the refrigerator, etc. Then you'll want to add Checkmate to your list. It has so much in it to keep you mildly interested, and it's very noisy so you'll be able to understand what's going on when your head is turned away for a minute. To its credit, everyone involved in the movie seems to know it's incredibly cheesy, and they milk it for all its worth.

In one parallel storyline, Danny Glover and Vinnie Jones are playing an intense game of chess. In another, there's a bank robbery, complete with mistakes, hostages, and cops surrounding the parking lot. In a third, there's a kid dying in the hospital, and when his father turns to a priest (Sean Astin), it turns out the priest has a gun in the confessional. These stories are all supposed to tie in, but I doubt anyone took this movie seriously enough to find out if they do.

In all honesty, this movie is terrible. But there are some people who like to watch terrible movies. To each his own, as they say.

Good Lord I have never seen such trash

[usarmyeret · 1/10 · 13 October 2017]

At 62 years old and a movie fan, I thought I had seen it all. In all of my life I have never witnessed such a piece of crap. We laughed all of the way though the movie, the acting, the plot (or lack of), the so called police, just incredibly stupid. I told my wife that Danny Glover was in the movie so I thought it would be okay. I am not sure what is going on with Danny Glover but he sold his soul to the devil (no pun intended). I am very happy I did not pay for this. If I had went to a theater to see it (I do not think it would have ever been allowed in a pay theater), I would have demanded my money back, and very loudly and publicly. I cannot believe that anyone who worked in or on this movie could possibly have thought it was any good at all. Pathetic, just pathetic.

9:11

[Darby2221 · 1/10 · 18 January 2016]

That's the point to which I got in the movie - and the number I wanted to call to get me out of it.

After Sean Astin says, "Do you have something for me my son?" I had to give up. Sorry! That has to be one of the most clichéd things for a priest to say and was the last straw in about the shortest time I've ever given up on a movie. Please - if this movie got better around the 10:11 mark or so - please let me know and I'll give it another shot.

The acting looked sub par, the mood felt sub par, the dialogue didn't even MAKE IT to sub par. I've watched some of Sean's...shall we say...lesser works...("Adopting Terror" anyone?)...and managed to sit it through but this was abysmal.

Sort of like an heist movie that meets 'the Seventh Seal'

[bellino-angelo2014 · 6/10 · 12 April 2023]

CHECKMATE is, by accounts, a terrible movie. It's score on IMDB is an appalling 2,6 and yet it has never made the Bottom 100. Why it never made the list of the 100 lowest rated and reviewed movies on the site? Well, since August 2018 the list requires that a movie must have at least 10,000 for making it... and CHECKMATE has only 1,171 ratings... meaning it will never make the list because nobody would ever seek it after me. So why did I watch it? Well, I occasionally love to see movies that have rotten reputations or are forgotten because I am one of the few who can appreciate them. So is CHECKMATE that bad as the rating and reviews would imply? Nope. Now it's certainly not a great movie... but there are at least 1000 worse. Let's see.

When the film begins Elohim (Danny Glover) is playing chess with Lu (Vinnie Jones), his daughter's kidnapper and if Elohim loses the game, Lu will kill him and take his daughter with him. At the same time Dyson (Sean Astin) is a priest that goes in a nightclub and shoots a man that took money from the church's offerings, and in the bank under the floor where Elohim and Lu play chess near the church where Dyson preaches there is an heist organized by Joey (Johnny Messner) who is apparently a nut case that makes all his men end shot by the policemen. In the end the robbery will be stopped by Dyson that suddenly becomes a sniper and shoots Joey in the head and Elohim will win the chess game and take his daughter with him.

So is it terrible? No. It's not great but not terrible. There were some slow moments I admit it but there were also some nice parts such as all the aforementioned ones and the last 20 minutes kept me enthralled. The plot is perfect for the genre and the movie comes off like a merging of any heist movie you can think of (they made lots of them didn't they?) and THE SEVENTH SEAL when the knight plays chess with the Death.

The bottom line is that the film didn't seemed awful nor painful to stomach, which defied my expectations because I was expecting to hate it and that it would have been an embarassment for its stars.

Checkmate? I checked out after 45 minutes!

[jsalern1 · 1/10 · 5 December 2015]

You would think a movie with Danny Glover and Vinnie Jones would be worth a watch, right? WRONG! Not this flick! Wow, the dialogue was so bad, and not just badly written, but badly acted out too! Cringe- worthy! Every 3rd word is f***ing, and it grates on your nerves after about 10 minutes of it. The story is so discombobulated, it is so jumbled and contrived. It is like they tried way to hard to be a hipper version of a Tarantino flick. Way Way WAY too hard! I can't believe how many quality actors are in this movie, they should be ashamed! I couldn't even get to the finish, it was THAT BAD! What a waste of money! What a mess!!

So bad

[joe-825 · 1/10 · 9 November 2015]

The last movie I saw 'starring' Danny and Vinnie should have warned me to stay clear of this movie but I was able to watch it for free so went against my better judgement.

It's clear that the two main 'stars' have given up any semblance of wanting to create a memorable piece of drama and would rather bank the cheques.

I can understand that of Vinnie Jones but I really don't see why such an accomplished actor as Danny Glover is sacrificing his credibility to appear in dreck such as this.

You'll notice that I have not made any specific reference to the movie itself to this point. So here it is , it's cheaply made, badly directed and has a plot line that is beyond nonsense. Everybody involved with this movie should feel ashamed.

There are no more words.

I don't why this movie exists

[ThanksTjx · 2/10 · 11 November 2021]

Separately each act well but all together in this movie blah... I watched it because I was high but now I feel like I wasted my high. I just felt like each person has a story and it just doesn't jell well but hey that's just me...

stupid, slow, boring, with profanity and assault rifles abounding

[blanche-2 · 1/10 · 15 May 2020]

I'll say the same thing another reviewer said - I don't have a problem with the F bomb if we're going for gritty realism. But every other word? That's just a cheap way to fill up script pages.

I can tell you what "Checkmate" is supposed to be - not that you'll be able to tell until the end quote. It has to do with the fight between good and evil, exemplified by a chess game between a good person (Danny Glover in white) and an evil one (in black).

They are playing for a document called Deed to Eternity. Guess the person who wins gets to live forever. Danny Glover looks like he already has, but I guess he doesn't want the other guy to have it. Apparently the moves they make alter what is going on in the bank. But you'd have to be Einstein to figure that out.

What I just described to you is completely separate from the plot of the movie. Completely. No overlap.

The plot concerns a bank robbery. Inside the bank are a man who has hired a Bible-quoting priest assassin to kill him so his family gets the insurance, a pregnant woman with asthma, and some well-armed robbers.

I'm guessing this was another fight between good and evil because at the end of the film, one of the SWAT team finds out something really strange, and then an 11th-hour miracle occurs somewhere else. So good won that round.

Evil seems to have emerged triumphant, though, since this movie managed to get made.