Yesterday, I went to see Pawn Sacrifice at a local movie theater. It was empty. There could not have been more than a dozen or so people in the theater on a Saturday night during the busiest time.

I did not know what to expect of the movie. Overall, the movie is OK. However, there were many glaring points which came to my mind.

  1. Fischer was 6’2”. Tobey Maguire is 5’8″. Fischer was a tall chess player with broad shoulders. He had huge hands. He was an intimidating figure physically. However, when he was with the people he was comfortable with, he was a gentle giant.
  2. Fischer’s charisma and sense of humor did not come through in this movie. He was nothing like the way the movie portrayed him. Most of his “issues” did not start until well after his 1972 match (even more so after he became entangle with a religious cult). Even when you watch the clip with Bob Hope, it was filmed after he defeated Boris Spassky and won the World Championship. Bobby was very funny.
  3. There were a number of issues with various scenes. One of them was Bobby reading the Russian chess magazine and the moves 1. h4 h5 were shown. This is quite ridiculous for anyone who plays chess, which is nearly 1 billion people worldwide.

This begs the question. Did anyone contact the people who knew Fischer well? Anyone who knew Fischer back then could have pointed many of these things out. From the scale of 1-10, I give this movie a 6.

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