Pawn Sacrifice

The name Bobby Fischer may not be as familiar today, but during the Cold War era this eccentric chess prodigy from Brooklyn dominated the headlines: particularly in the summer of 1972, when the world was riveted by a championship match in Reykjavik, Iceland, between Fischer (Tobey Maguire) and Soviet grandmaster/reigning world champion Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber). After losing the first game, belligerent, temperamental Fischer, ever-suspicious of KGB surveillance, refuses to show up for the second, lodging complaints about whirring camera noise and the audience's close proximity. At his side are his patient, patriotic lawyer/manager Paul Marshall (Michael Stuhlberg) and Fr. Bill Lombardy (Peter Sarsgaard), a grandmaster coach/priest, who describes chess as “a rabbit hole” that takes players very close to the edge. Part bio-pic/part docudrama, Pawn Sacrifice is astutely directed by Edward Zwick, who digitally substitutes Maguire for the real Fischer in a '71 TV interview with Dick Cavett. Flashbacks show Fischer's budding genius emerging at age six, much to the surprise of his sister (Lily Rabe) and Russian/Jewish, left-wing activist mother (Robin Weigert), a suspected Communist. Unfortunately, Maguire constantly bugs his eyes to telegraph his volatile, paranoid rage and anti-Semitism—making Schreiber's intimidating Spassky the more intriguing character. And much of Fischer's controversial behavior in his later years is glossed over. Optional. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include a “Bobby Fischer, the Cold War and the Match of the Century” making-of featurette (3 min.), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release are bonus digital and UltraViolet copies of the film. Bottom line: a small extras package for an uneven film.] (S. Granger)