Who would have believed a chess match could be so gripping on screen!

Rating: 10/10 (14 October 2015)

PAWN SACRIFICE, Biography of a Mad American Chess Prodigy Viewed at the Jameson Cinefest in Miskokc, September 2015, By Herbert Rodin Pevner-Deleon
"Pawn Sacrifice" the masterful biopic of the bumpy life of highly controversial American chess prodigy Bobby Fisher did not cash in on any prizes at the Miskolc festival, but to me it was easily the highlight of the festival week. Okay, I came of age intellectually during the Bobby Fisher years, always admired his rebellious spirit and sheer brilliance, played a little chess myself. and can therefore relate to this picture from a personal perspective, but aside from that, this is a meticulously constructed docu-drama with an uncanny Oscar worthy performance by Toby McGuire as Fischer, most skillfully steered through the historical Cold War setting by veteran Hollywood director, Edward Zwick.
Above all Mcguire, who is rather short of stature and does not physically resemble the tall handsome Fischer in the least, nevertheless nails Fischer's complex fuming, unpredictable, mercurial character and personality so thoroughly that physical resemblance becomes a moot point as the story progresses. The film traces Fischer's life from a troubled childhood in Brooklyn (with outstanding juvenile roles) up through national celebrity as a young chess wizard, international political celebrity when he confronts Russian Chess grandmaster Boris Spassky at the height of the Cold War in Reykjavik in 1972, and finally, his decline into paranoid obscurity in his antisemitic anti-American later years.
The electrically charged chessboard battle of the titans in Iceland -- billed at the time as "The Match of the Century" and symbolically as a major superpower Cold War confrontation, is the centerpiece of the current film -- amazing that a series of chess games can be so action packed and full of suspense on screen -- kudos to Director Zwick.
The title of the film refers to a well known chess move in which one of the eight pawns is sacrificed to gain a temporary strategic advantage. In this case it is clearly meant to resonate with Bobby's own sacrifice on the alter of American "justice" when he defied a State Department ban on travel to Jugoslavia in 1992 to engage in a nostalgic rematch with Spassky. Fischer won the rematch in Belgrade but had his passport revoked and subsequently became a refugee from American Law for the rest of his life -- bouncing around incognito from country to country behind a full beard he had grown as a disguise.
For a time he took up refuge in Chigasaki, Japan, under the tutelage and protection of Go expert Waclaw Lukasiewicz, but was arrested by the Japs and threatened with deportation, until Iceland finally offered him asylum and full citizenship. By now, totally freaked out (never emotionally stable in the best of times) and Convinced that not only the CIA, but the Russian MVD and the international Jewish Conspiracy as well, were all out to get him, he constantly made vicious anti-American and vitriolic anti- semitic statements -- the latter in despite of (or because of) his own Jewish background. Fischer died alone in Reykjavik in 2008 at the age of 64 a raving maniac in a full white beard -- in the very city where he had reached the pinnacle of his fame 36 years before. In a detailed assessment of the film long term Fischer friend and associate Sam Sloan has pointed out a number of minor historical inconsistencies (exact names and dates and slightly variant chess moves) but was very moved by Mcguire's tremendous portrayal of Bobby the man and the overall quality of the picture, both as entertainment and a powerful document of a most intriguing and important American life, now all but forgotten.