"Pawn sacrifice" – This is a vivid example of a fairly standard biopic, which, however, does not prevent the tandem of director Edward Zwick and Tobey Maguire from shining, who gives out here the best role in his entire career. Not least of all, this is due to the very personality of the main character of the picture, the brilliant chess player Bobby Fischer, who had to fight paranoia, notoriety and enormous pressure from all sides in 1972 during a chess match with the Soviet grandmaster Boris Spassky. The clearly felt realism of the situation turns the movie into a tense intellectual thriller, but complete submission to this realism is unlikely to allow the movie to become one of the main players in the upcoming awards season.
However, `` Sacrificing a pawn '' tells a brilliant story exciting, exciting, with big stakes and many-sided characters, so the tension grows in the most natural way, and the interest in what is happening never subsides. Bobby Fischer, like a real chess player always trying to calculate the situation a few steps ahead, is constantly spinning in the shrinking cage of his own madness under the constant supervision of tens of thousands of eyes staring at him, because the match with Spassky takes place in the midst of the Cold War between the USA and the USSR. Winning for both players is not just a goal, but a task clearly set by the state. “ Pawn sacrifice ” turned out to be a story of that thin line between insanity and genius that many famous people once stood on, and Fisher was one of them.
Tobey Maguire is trying to investigate, what is going on in the minds of people like Fischer, what it means to live with chess moves constantly scrolling in front of your eyes, like a cinematic movie in a jammed projector. That awakening feeling of irritation from the continuously clicking cameras of photo reporters, the cries of passers-by, the ticking clock is conveyed by Maguire very clearly, very vividly, with a considerable degree of vulnerability and vulnerability, which always causes warmth towards the hero and pity. Although one cannot fail to note the skill of Stephen Knight's written word and sound effects, which skillfully focus the viewer's attention on seemingly imperceptible details that so annoyed Fisher.
However, neither the script, nor Maguire himself, who produced Pawn Sacrifice, try to dig deeper than their capabilities, do not test themselves and, in the end, don't really try to figure out Bobby Fischer. The result is a highly direct and engaging movie that lacks the emotional maturity and definition of message. Edward Zwick freezes somewhere on the verge between commercial cinema and art house, unable to make a conscious choice either in favor of one or the other, which turns cinema into a rather insipid spectacle, albeit competently woven.
This is evidenced by the cast of actors, good actors like Liv Schreiber, who plays Spassky, or Peter Sarsgaard, who are neither big stars nor virtuosos in their field, and play their very characteristic roles without passion, but with the fatigue of professionals who offer nothing new. They do a good job, but one that doesn't catch the eye on the screen. The same can be said for the pastel shots of cameraman Bradford Young, devoid of any resourcefulness or personality.
Only the music of James Newton Howard makes `` Pawn sacrifice ''; a bigger movie than it really is. The picture often plays up the fact that everything depends on your insight, on your perception of the situation, therefore it is ironic how Zwick himself plays a conventional game with the viewer: on the one hand, a brilliant movie from a different angle looks just a blurry sketch. However, Zwick, as in previous movies, manages to grab the viewer's attention enough not to let him see his flaws, his roughness, and this makes him an invaluable acquisition.
Ultimately, “ Pawn sacrifice ” - this is definitely worthy of attention, let it never grow to the potential given not so much by the story itself as by the largely enigmatic personality of Bobby Fischer. Therefore, Zwick and Maguire turned out in all respects a small movie, unfortunately, almost imperceptible, which is unlikely to have time to touch many.
The Topic of Article: Review of the movie Sacrificing a pawn. Perception game.
Author: Jake Pinkman |
