PAWN SACRIFICE Review — collider.com

After watching Liz Garbus’ documentary Bobby Fischer Against the World several years ago and now Edward Zwick’s Pawn Sacrifice, I’m learning towards the conclusion that Bobby Fischer wasn’t an incredibly interesting human being, but we continue to study him because he had a big personality and was arguably the best chess player who ever lived.   Many geniuses are labeled as “temperamental”, but sometimes their temperament leans towards some redeeming aspect of their personality.  Bobby Fischer, as far as we can tell, did not have any, and even in Zwick’s dramatic retelling of Fischer’s career leading up to his famous 1972 world championship, there’s no shading.  The Bobby Fischer of the popular conscious is still a mean guy who was phenomenal at chess, and Zwick has barely anything to add except some mildly interesting supporting characters and plenty of news clip montages.

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