Searching For Bobby Fisher Movie Review
Copyright (c) 1993, Bruce Diamond
All rights reserved



        Ŀ
          SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISCHER:  Written and directed by    
          Steven Zaillian.  Based on the book by Fred Waitzkin.    
          Stars Joe Mantegna, Laurence Fishburne, Joan Allen, Max  
          Pomeranc, and Ben Kingsley.  Paramount Pictures.         
          Rated PG.                                                
        

          SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISHER is the most gripping movie about
     chess I've ever seen.  Yes, that's right, it's a chess movie, but
     just as FIELD OF DREAMS was a baseball movie that was more than a
     baseball movie, so is SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISHER a chess movie
     that isn't just a chess movie.  It's a story about dedication,
     art, synthesis, and life.  It's a movie that'll stir your
     emotions without ignoring your mind.  It's a movie that'll
     definitely be remembered on critics' year-end lists and at next
     year's Academy Awards.  And it's a movie with mass appeal, not an
     art house film that only the intelligentsia and critics who want
     to impress people praise.  It's really that good, and you really
     will be entertained.

          SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISHER is the true-life story of Josh
     Waitzkin (played with perfect intensity by Max Pomeranc, who is a
     top-ranked chess player), caught between his love for speed
     chess, his stern by-the-book teacher, and the need for his
     father's love.  Josh is a natural, teaching himself chess from
     watching the speed chess players in Washington Square Park,
     especially one player named Vinnie (Larry Fishburne), who recog-
     nizes the same creative spark in Josh that Bobby Fisher, the U.S.
     and world champ who disappeared mysteriously in the mid- '70s,
     once displayed.  Other players in the park call Josh the young
     Bobby Fisher when he begins playing there on a regular basis.
     Even Bruce Pandolfino (Ben Kingsley, in a moving performance
     that's sure to be ranked as one of his best), who becomes Josh's
     teacher, says to the boy's father (Joe Mantegna), "He creates
     like Fisher."  Fisher raised the game from a science to an art,
     he explains, and no one's been able to duplicate that feat since.

          Until, that is, Josh Waitzkin begins playing.

          He demonstrates his talent to his father in one of the
     movie's most delightful sequences -- Josh plays with his sister,
     eats dinner, takes a phonecall, and takes a bath, all between
     moves.  When his father announces it's Josh's turn, Josh runs
     into the room, moves a piece, and rushes back out, leaving his
     father to take another 20 minutes to make his own move.  Mantegna
     plays the perplexed scenes so well you know his frustration --
     and his growing awe of his on screen son.  He tells Josh's
     elementary school teacher in one scene, "He's better at this than
     I'll ever be at anything!"  It's through this same scene we at
     once discover the depth of Josh's fixation, *and* the even
     greater depth of his father's obsession that Josh become the best
     there ever was at the game of chess.

          Director/screenwriter Steven Zaillian has taken a different
     approach with SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISHER, one necessitated by the
     intimacy of the game, of the story the camera is capturing, and
     by the location (Toronto substitutes for Chicago for most of the
     film), and his artistic choice raises the film to another level.
     Without this intimacy, we wouldn't feel Josh's fascination for
     the game, his father's burning desire for Josh's success, and
     Pandolfino's duality as demanding taskmaster and competitive
     coward.  At least, we wouldn't feel it as intensely as Zaillian
     intended.

          And when Josh meets up with another chess powerhouse his own
     age, we're right on the edge of giving up with him.  Until, that
     is, the new fire hits him again in the park, which is where the
     lighting and the camera shots opens up from close intimacy to
     world-engulfing optimism -- but only for a moment.  The climax at
     a state chess championship is as gripping and heartwarming as
     anything you're going to see for months.

          The first unqualified rave of the summer.  Isn't that enough
     to make you see SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISHER?  It oughta be.

     RATING:  10 out of 10.
