Review of Pawn Sacrifice (2015) by Greg B — 28 Sep 2015

"Pawn Sacrifice" is the story of Bobby FIscher, the U.S. grandmaster in chess who went on to the world championship to face the World Champion and Russian Boris Spassky. The characters in this film are all products of their time period in the height of the Cold War.

Fischer (Tobey Maguire) suffers from delusional psychosis and believes the Soviets are spying on him and conspiring to destroy him. Maguire does competent acting and captures the nuances of Fischer's personality well, from the angst to the arrogance and false pride.

I found the film highly compelling and entertaining. The plot is a bit paint-by-numbers, but this film is still an interesting character study nonetheless. Fischer had to overcome great odds to excel in his game, and the backdrop of the Cold War made the stakes all that much higher ------------------------------------------------------- B.