Review of Pawn Sacrifice (2015) by Netflic — 27 Sep 2015
This is a bio-pic about a chess match between Bobby Fisher and Soviet Grandmaster and then chess world champion Boris Spassky.
It could have been a very good movie. Tobey Maguire played Bobby Fisher and he did an excellent job.
But what hurts the movie in my opinion is poor casting (in some cases, namely, Spassky’s role) and details that do not look right.
"The devil is in the details".
I am a demanding movie goer, and if details look phony, especially in a bio-pic, the movie looses credibility and therefore is not a good one.
As I mentioned above, Boris Spassky was, of course, a Soviet Grandmaster, and he could not speak Russian with an American accent. The actor who plays Spassky is too buff and looks more like a boxing champion than a chess player. There are dozens of native Russian speaking actors in this movie. Spassky's role was not that big. Every time he spoke, it bothered me. An interview that Bobby Fisher gave to "60 Minutes" on CBS in 1972 did not look real either. Either you make it look right, or do not put it into the movie... I could go on and on.
Having said that, the over-all atmosphere of Cold War times is caught quite nicely. Plenty of chronicle reels that attach the movie to it's time frame.
If you are a chess enthusiast, do not miss it.
My score, though, is only 6. Could have been much higher.
This review of Pawn Sacrifice (2015) was written by Netflic on 27 Sep 2015.
Pawn Sacrifice has generally received positive reviews.
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