A bit incoherent

Rating: 7/10 (30 April 2017)

"Pawn sacrifice" centers around the life and game of one of the greatest chess players of all time, Bobby Fischer, and his battle with both the cold war and his fragile mind. It thereby mainly focuses on the events of the World Championship in Reykjavyk.
In my opinion, the biggest strength of the movie becomes also its biggest problem. The attempt to create a balance between cold war, Fischer's mind and chess sometimes fails a bit. While much screen time is used to portray the events of Iceland, his breakdown afterwards and the questionable views he expressed are only mentioned very briefly. Somehow the movie still tells this story as an American hero tale, the Soviets are still the bad guys and all in all you can't help but say that this is a quite patriotic movie. I think that taking his whole life into account would have helped to understand better what happened to this man. It is indeed sad to see a brilliant mind fall to very dumb ideas and turn into somebody you need to oppose.
As it is, the movie is very much one in a row of movies showing us how pressure in sports or art can break people. Despite all my criticism it is still a good movie, thoroughly produced and the person of Fischer surely delivers enough aspects to turn this into an interesting film. One that is solid, but also one that could be even better.