I'm not really a sporting kind of guy, (but then is chess a sport or just 'a game'?). I mean, I don't watch football and I've never gotten into cricket but I've always enjoyed tennis. I actually find it exciting so maybe it's just team sports I'm not into. Until recently I thought chess might be the most boring game/sport on the planet until, thanks to the lockdown, I actually learned to play it, (I've even won a few games). I mention this because I've just watched "Pawn Sacrifice", Edward Zwick's 2014 film about the rivalry between chess champions Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. I suppose it qualifies as a Bobby Fischer biopic as he's the central character and we see him right through from childhood to the legendary 'Match of the Century' and he's superbly played by Tobey Maguire who makes him a brilliant, arrogant and highly unstable genius. Spassky is an equally good Liev Schreiber and there's nice supporting work from Michael Stuhlbarg and Peter Sarsgaard.
Of course, fundamentally Steven Knight's excellent script is a movie as much about the Cold War as it is about chess and it's a rather special kind of thriller. I've discovered just how thrilling, (or boring), chess can be but here is a movie about a volatile young man who may go off the rails at any moment as well as film about the broader political spectrum and it works on every level, (it's also a kind of real-life "Rocky" story). Unfortunately, chess, Fischer and the Cold War were not the stuff of box-office glory and the film just disappeared. Of course, the title might not have helped; "Pawn Sacrifice" is hardly likely to attract a mass audience on as Saturday night or any other night, come to think of it. See it.
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