Pawn Sacrifice Reviews

I wasn't really sure what to expect from this flick but since the story was intriguing, I was really eager to check it out. Indeed, even though I'm a rather lousy chess player, I think it is a fascinating game so it was really neat to see a movie dealing with Bobby Fisher, probably one of the best chess players that ever lived and easily the most famous one. Well, Fisher turned out to quite a spellbinding character and, with this material, you could definitely make a great movie but, unfortunately, it turned out to be only decent but not much more than that, I'm afraid. I won't blame Tobey Maguire who gave here a really solid performance but, in my opinion, the biggest issue was with the directing. I mean, Edward Zwick is not really a bad director, in fact, he usually choses some interesting projects, but he is not what you would call a fascinating 'author' and it was unfortunately pretty obvious here. Indeed, Bobby Fisher was pretty much an icon back in those days, his game with Boris Spassky was a huge event followed by millions of people, and yet Zwick delivered such a safe uninspiring by-the-numbers biopic which was watchable but not really satisfying. You can only imagine what a director like David Fincher (who was actually attached to this project for several years) could have done with this fascinating material. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still an entertaining story though and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested by this subject. 

Initial Thought: I remember seeing Searching for Bobby Fischer many years ago and loving it. I was sort of disappointed that it hadn't actually been about the infamous chess player. It did make up for it though. This however I've been looking forward to ever since the trailer. It looked amazing and to be Tobey Maguire's best performance to date.

Characters/Acting: The main cast are pretty excellent choices. I was also surprised to see some of the bit parts played by pretty good actors like Young Joan. So Tobey Maguire was absolutely amazing as Bobby Fischer. In my opinion he is deserving of an Oscar nomination here. I'm usually kind of indifferent to him, but he really showed range with this role. Liev Schreiber didn't do much for me here to be honest. He was just here and although his performance was good. Boris wasn't really all that interesting of a character in my opinion. Peter Sarsgaard was my favorite here with his charismatic performance. His character adds a bit of needed humor as well as a fun personality to watch. Michael Stuhlbarg seems to be playing the guy who gets picked on by the geniuses lately in films. Here I kind of felt bad for him when he just simply wanted to help.

Story: American chess legend Bobby Fischer and Soviet Grandmaster Boris Spassky enthrall the world with their intense battle of wills and strategy during the 1972 World Chess Championship. The progression of genius clashing with insanity was so intriguing. I like how realistic they made his breakdowns like the phone clicks and such. I never really knew how much of a prick he was though. It seems that a lot of intelligent people think little of others and therefore treat them like crap. I mean take a look at Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. I would have liked to see the match between him and the Father. Also I found it interesting how they did the matches at the end. I liked how the ending showed us the rest of what happened in his life through old clips and such. It makes me wonder how he had himself under control for the film Searching for Bobby Fischer.

Directing/Writing: Edward Zwick is a really well off director. The only movie of his I actually hated was The Last Samurai. I honestly can't remember why, but I was much younger and probably just bored with it. Every other film of his I consider amongst favorites. This is the first movie written by Steven Knight that I would say is amazing. Everything else is pretty good or just average. I haven't seen movies from neither Stephen J. Rivele nor Christopher Wilkinson, but they do have some pretty popular ones in their repertoire.

Final Thought: This was a pretty awesome watch. Tobey Maguire really proved himself a contender here. I never thought very much of him until now. I definitely recommend this if you are a fan of chess or even Tobey Maguire. It was entertaining from start to finish. There was honestly never a dull moment.