An excellent Bobby Fischer biopic that’s wrenching as we watch his descent into total paranoia. Somehow he pulls it all together to beat Boris Spassky in the 1972 World Chess Championship. Game 6 of the tournament is supposedly the greatest chess game ever played. At its finish Spassky stands and leads the audience in applause for his opponent’s skill. It’s a tragic story of a brilliant mind and blinding potential destroyed by delusions of persecution by godless communists and predatory Zionists (even though Fischer was Jewish and part Russian). He died an ex-pat in Iceland in his mid-sixties. It’s amazing how much suspense a skillful script and cast can build into a chess match.

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