Pawn Sacrifice (2014) - Zwick, Knight and Maguire's mediocre chess genius movie

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The evocative but dour poster for Edward Zwick's Pawn Sacrifice

 

Bobby Fischer became an obsessive chess master already as a boy. When, as an adult, he is to face Russian Spassky in the chessboard clash between the world's superpowers, the US and the USSR, his psyche creaks on him.

 

Fischer is not a wildly sympathetic character, and the game of chess doesn't really get opened up in Pawn Sacrifice, which for some time makes it seem somewhat grey and dull. But as it reaches its Reykjavik showdown, it grows some legs, especially through the engaged performances of Tobey Maguire (The Great Gatsby (2013)) and Liev Schreiber (Salt (2010)) as the two chess masters. We have got a complex character in Fischer to be sure, but he also remains too enigmatic until the very end. Pawn Sacrifice is not a bad film, but I don't feel we get far enough into Fischer for it to fully succeed.

It is written by Steven Knight (Amazing Grace (2006)) and directed by Edward Zwick (Glory (1989)).

 

Related review:
 

Edward Zwick: Blood Diamond (2006) - Fundamentally flawed, unsuccessful Africa-venture with important issues at its core

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 19 mil. $

Box office: 5.5 mil. $

= Box office disaster

[Pawn Sacrifice premiered September 11 (Toronto International Film Festival) and runs 115 minutes. Filming took place in Reykjavik, Montreal and LA from October - December 2013. The film opened #33 to a 0.2 mil. $ first weekend in 33 theaters, widening to #12 with 1 mil. $ in 781 theaters in North America, where it grossed 2.4 mil. $ (43.6 % of the total gross). Its 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 427k $ (7.8 %) and Spain with 230k $ (4.2 %). The film is far from historically accurate, as is revealed here. Pawn Sacrifice is fresh at 72 % with a 6.5 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Pawn Sacrifice?