Edgy performances draw empathy in New Zealand drama 'Dark Horse'

Roger Ebert once referred to the movies as "empathy machines," and no film illustrates this better than James Napier Robinson's universally appealing, fact-based New Zealand Maori drama "The Dark Horse."

We've seen a thousand mentor-making-a-difference movies before, but not like this one.

Cliff Curtis stars as speed-chess great Genesis Potini, a brilliant player who suffered from bipolar disorder. After a nervous breakdown, "Gen" volunteers to coach a bunch of local kids, outcasts and troubled youth at the Eastern Knights after-school chess club.

The kids are a mess from broken families, especially Gen's young nephew Mana (James Rolleston), whose tribal dad wants his biker buddies to "toughen up" his son by beating him and urinating on him.

Curtis, with his teeth missing and a partially shaved head, delivers an egoless performance so manic, unstable and volatile that he keeps us on constant edge over what he might say or do that could ruin his kids' chances at the obligatory big chess match, an event carrying the hopes of so many kids who can't afford any other dreams.

Robertson gives each character a moment to shine and be seen so that we know exactly what's at stake in this drama, directed, shot and cut in such a frayed and tattered style that it - in chess parlance - takes the Queen.