Sanitized History, Plain and Simple

Rating: 1/10 (28 January 2018)

I suppose this is a nice story and the cast is top notch, but the film bares little resemblance to actual people and events. But what is unforgivable, the film gets Bobby Fischer completely wrong, and in doing so, attempts to sanitize the man's legacy.
Tobey McGuire is a talented actor, but this was a terrible casting choice. His mannerisms, speaking style and physical appearance are way, way off. The real Fischer was a tall, dark, brooding, anti-social figure. His ugliness on the inside manifested itself in his outward appearance. Tobey McGuire is simply too likeable to play such a role. He tries really hard, but its just not believable.
I'm old enough to remember the World Championship match in Iceland in 1972. It captivated the world and made chess popular in the mainstream. Fischer's victory gave America a much needed morale boost during the depths of the Cold War.
So, while it was a triumphant moment for America, it was the beginning of a long, painful descent into madness and infamy for Bobby Fischer. The film portrays Fischer as a somewhat lovable eccentric with a paranoid personality. In reality, Fischer was almost certainly somewhere high on the Autistic spectrum. He had other serious mental disorders as well. None of this was clinically diagnosed, but was evident in his actions over the years. He was a loner who treated people very badly. He died
penniless, friendless, as an international criminal. His was not a life to be celebrated.
A much better film on the subject is the 2011 documentary "Bobby Fischer Against the World". Even the early-90s film "Searching for Bobby Fischer" tells us more about the man, and the phenomenon than "Pawn Sacrifice" does.
"Pawn Sacrifice" is really a big waste of time and resources. The producers badly missed the mark here. The one bright spot is Liev Schreiber who is a perfect Boris Spassky. Frankly, they should have just made a film about Spassky with Schreiber in the lead. Schreiber is one of our very best actors.
What is most troubling about this film, as well as many films these days, its attempting to revise history in a way that is most palatable to the masses. This film really misses the point of Bobby Fischer's' life.