'Pawn Sacrifice': The real story overwhelms its dramatization
'Pawn' stars Tobey Maguire and Liev Schreiber as chess players Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. Maguire overdoes his performance, but Schreiber is more effective.
'Pawn Sacrifice' stars Tobey Maguire.
Danny Moloshok/Reuters
Bobby Fischer was the rock star of the chess world and his 1972聽Reykjavik matchup against reigning champ Boris Spassky was an聽international event 鈥� the World Cup of brains.聽
Anyone who followed that match as it played out (as I did) must surely聽suspect that no movie could it justice. 鈥淧awn聽Sacrifice,鈥� directed by聽Edward Zwick and written by Steven Knight, uses the duel as its聽centerpiece and solidifies that suspicion. But there is, of course, an irresistible聽urge to see the dramatization of actual events, especially involving聽someone as nuttily charismatic as Fischer.
Tobey Maguire plays Fischer, and, though he tries hard, he can鈥檛 get聽really get inside Fischer鈥檚 cerebellum. Also, Maguire is essentially an聽indrawn actor, and in this film, he is required to be showily extroverted 鈥撀爈ots of yelling and hand-waving. He overdoes it. More effective is Liev聽Schreiber鈥檚 Spassky, who radiates a force field of wary contemplation.聽He鈥檚 a Soviet who, traveling abroad, enjoys the accouterments of聽Western luxury. He鈥檚 also realistic enough to know that beneath Fischer鈥檚聽manias is a formidable foe.聽
There are other good performances, including a small one by Peter聽Sarsgaard as Fischer鈥檚 chess trainer, but overall this is a film in which, as聽the end credit documentary footage attests, the real story overwhelms its聽dramatization. Grade:聽B- (Rated PG-13 for brief strong language, some sexual content and historical smoking.)