The wonderful new bio-drama “Pawn Sacrifice” follows Fischer through his ambitious start and increasingly edgy rise. It is a part that Tobey Maguire has chased fifa 16 coins for years and one he plays with tough, hot-tempered brilliance. In Maguire’s portrait of a controversial, amoral, half-mad mastermind, his DNA appears to be at least 25 percent weasel.
Screenwriter Steven Knight (“Eastern Promises”) and director Edward Zwick (“Glory”) make the U.S. vs. U.S.S.R. rivalry the film’s central focus. It opens at a time when world champion chess players were not rich, and Fischer, a temperamental control freak, was determined to change that at whatever cost.
With his mind overcrowded by trillions of potential strategies, Fischer is ill-equipped to guide his own career. He’s chaperoned by Paul Marshall (Michael Stuhlbarg), a flag-waving lawyer who sees Fischer as an emblem of American strength, and Father William Lombardy (Peter Sarsgaard), a Catholic priest and chess grandmaster who trained him earlier. Maguire’s performance shows the rising star’s brilliance and contrary childishness. The scenes where his guides try to steer his mulish obstinacy toward common sense are amusingly ingenious.
As Spassky, Liev Schreiber is the film’s key asset, speaking in a heavy Russian accent and mostly Russian dialogue. He’s not the villain of the piece, though Maguire’s reaction suggests otherwise. From their first meeting in California, www.utfifa.co where the Russian travels with a 12-man security team and stays in a luxury hotel while Fischer and his two handlers economize in a cheesy motel, he becomes Fischer’s phantom nemesis.