Pawn Sacrifice

In the last decade, I believe Hollywood has produced more biopics than in its entire existence, which is something considering how many biopics have been produced. Sure, this is a slight exaggeration, but it proves quite the point of how much Hollywood, or maybe the audience out there, is fascinated with this arena. As I mentioned in the last couple of reviews, considering how many biopics have been made, it's practically become its own genre. So now we have yet another biopic in the offing in the form of "Pawn Sacrifice".

In a gripping true story set during the height of the Cold War, American chess prodigy, Bobby Fischer (Tobey Maguire) finds himself caught between two superpowers when he challenges the Soviet Empire, namely one Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber). This story chronicles Fischer's terrifying struggles with genius and madness, and the rise and fall of a kid from Brooklyn who captured the imagination of the world.
As a kid, he was introduced to Carmine Nigro (Conrad Pla), a chess professional himself, by his mother Regina (Robin Weigert) to see if Bobby had any potential in the field of chess. Later in his life, he befriended lawyer, Paul Marshall (Michael Stuhlbarg) and a fellow chess player, Father Bill Lombardy (Peter Sarsgaard) who, through the years and anguish going through Bobby's mental health issues, stuck with him through all the problems knowing that Bobby was worth it considering his genius of the game.

Others to round out the cast are Lily Rabe as Joan Fischer, Bobby's empathetic sister, Sophie Nelisse as Young Joan, Evelyne Brochu as Donna, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick as Teen Bobby Fischer, Aiden Lovekamp as Young Bobby Fischer, and Ilia Volok as KGB Agent.

This was directed with delineated precision by veteran, Edward Zwick ("About Last Night... " '86, "Glory" '89, "Leaving Normal" '94, "Legends of the Fall" '94, "Courage Under Fire" '96, "The Siege" '98, "The Last Samurai" '03, "Blood Diamond" '06, "Defiance" '08, "Love & Other Drugs" '10). This director has certainly come a long way. Who ever thought that the guy from the TV series "Thirtysomething" would have the impressive resume he has now? Zwick wrote and directed many of the "Thirtysomething" scripts back in the 80's, which, at the time, was cutting edge TV, and from there he has slowly made the ascent toward being a very solid director. This film showcased his ability once more. The way he was able to get his actors to emit the emotions, especially Maguire from being OK to extreme paranoid was executed with perfection. It reminded me of Ron Howard's direction of Russell Crowe playing John Nash in "A Beautiful Mind" in which the effectiveness was similar. This was effectively written by Steven Knight based on a story by Stephen J. Rivele, Christopher Wilkinson and Knight. It was basically written as a flashback going back to 1951, when Bobby was a small child and slowly chronicled his life with his obsession with chess and the mental illness that practically suffocated him. It was well thought out and flowed extremely well, however considering the experience behind the pen, Knight made Bobby's story simply soar. This could garner Maguire a nomination come Oscar time, and Liev Shreiber's Spassky was acted with incredible grit, expecially considering that all his lines were in 100% Russian--Spassky knew no English. The detail in this was stunning, but this is the way that Zwick works best.

Fine performances by all in this, especially Maguire, and the writing and directing equaled the acting as well. The story goes much farther than what we got when all this happened back in the day, so it definitely made the story grittier, intense and entertaining all at the same time.

Out of 4 Stars: 4                                  Rated: PG-13                                 114mins.