Tobey Maguire is Bobby Fischer in this tense evocation of the Cold War chess showdown of the early-1970s.
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But, as somebody says, “out of all of the craziness come video games of such unimaginable magnificence”. Viewers see Fischer as a child, raised by a socialist, Jewish single mother (Robin Weigert) whose views he’d later rebel against.
Maguire, who is 40, still has the baby face to play Fischer, and he does just fine with the role.
“Pawn Sacrifice” has been directed by Edward Zwick.
Zwick does a good job of reminding the audience of a time when America was obsessed with chess, all thanks to Fischer. Well, we know he does because this is based on a true story, and while Zwick does give that 1972 match the appropriate space in the film, he’s wisely more concerned about the line between genius and madness, and if it was worth Fischer essentially going insane for the world to be gifted with his still unparalleled play. When he’s dealing with heroes like Glory’s 54th Massachusetts Infantry, or Defiance’s Nazi-fighting Bielski partisans, that’s easier to pull off. But with a protagonist as hard and fascinating as Bobby Fischer, it’s too short an order.
While the ’72 match was certainly the high point in both Fischer’s career and life, it wasn’t the only thing ripe for cinematic mining. Tobey Maguire, in an Oscar worthy performance, plays Bobby Fisher, a mentally ill brilliant chess master.
As a stand-alone work of fiction, however, “Pawn Sacrifice” is one of the best movies of the year.
There are two scenes in the film showing Bobby Fischer as a kid.
An exclusive clip from Pawn Sacrifice shows how seriously the Soviets take their chess. Fischer’s freaky post-Spassky life might one day make for an interesting film of its own.
But while big-budget Hollywood franchises pay well, they take a great deal of time to make, and when he’s locked into a multi-picture deal, a young actor doesn’t have the same opportunities to nab more challenging roles. Two of them – lawyer Paul Marshall (Michael Stuhlbarg) and priest Bill Lombardy (Peter Sarsgaard) – are willing to put up with his eccentricities in service of a patriotic goal: helping him to defeat Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber) of the Soviet Union and become world chess champion. Bobby died alone in Iceland in 2008 at the age of 64, his U.S. Passport having been revoked for anti-American and anti-Semitic public comments.
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Moreover, according to Molly Bloom who ran the top games in LA, he is also something of a tyrant at the table. Watching the Russians step out of black limos and into the Beverly Hilton in the film, you can’t help but flash on current President Vladimir Putin striding around Sochi – or the Putin manqué who stomps through Season 2 of the Netflix series House of Cards.
