Pawn Sacrifice

What an amazing movie. This movie lacks a lot of media attention probably because of its subject. Chess doesn't get a lot of attention these days because a lot of people find it boring. Calling this movie boring would be the biggest lie of 2015 though. It is one of the best performances, if not the best, from Tobey Maguire I have seen so far. And he has a phenomenal adversary in Liev Schreiber. The movie did not get very creative in its story, but chose a more literal setup from the actual events. This makes for a straight on drama movie without any melodramatic or emotional depth exaggerating the facts, but that is certainly for the best.

'Pawn Sacrifice' is a great biographical chess drama about the tragic life of grandmaster and world champion Bobby Fischer, one of the greatest chess players of all time. The central roles are played by Tobey Maguire, who delivers one of the best performances of his career, and Liev Schreiber, who does an impressive job by playing Boris Spassky, Fischer's main adversary. Although the film addresses many important aspects of the political context of the time and of Fischer's life and mental illness I feel there was still room to explore much more, especially about his psychological health. Even so I strongly recommend the movie to anyone interested in chess or Fischer's biography. Also, if you want to see Tobey doing something different from his famous role as 'Peter Parker' this will definitely be an interesting film to watch.