Changed the story to save money making the movie

Rating: 4/10 (6 March 2016)

When I first heard about the movie I was excited. I always knew about Bobby Fischer but wanted to know more about what made me go crazy and etc. Tobey Maguire is an excellent actor and did a great job with the script and direction he was given but because the script was so small, so to speak, and the director was many a little too timid or something when it came to the subject matter, all of Tobey Maguire's hard work in this movie is for nothing. Basically the film is about chess prodigy Bobby Fischer preparing to play the biggest game of his professional career. And that is about it.. and that is also the problem. The movie is so small that it feel claustrophobic. It was like 90% of the movie was shot in random hotel rooms. It was as if they didn't have a dime to spend on more background actors, better locations and etc. They even had to change the actual story in order to save money. Bobby Fischer's mother never left him, she spent years trying to help him. But this movie makes it out like Bobby was crazy from the start and the pressure of playing chess on a grand scale only made him more crazy. Liev Schreiber is an excellent actor but is completely wasted in this movie. His role of chess legend Boris Spassky could have been play by anyone because of how generic the role was written. The script is the major issue but they did it to keep production cost down. Unfortunately they also turned the movie into a boring little nothing of a film. It was like the first hour and 20 minutes are just filler until the Fischer vs Spassky match. This could have been Tobey Maguire's comeback film but now it is just another average post Spider-man movie for Maguire. What a shame.