Purely Joyful Movie!

Let's be realistic.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Compulsive doco. Still leaves you wishing they had delved more into his obvious mental condition instead of explaining it as part of his chess genius. And also, where exactly was he before he was tracked down and enticed to play again in '92? There may not be much to explain besides the fact he was part of the Church and then became converted to wacky hateful ideologies and then the Hungarian girl Zita appeared. It's all still a bit sketchy but fascinating. And that neurologist in Iceland, how did he get into the picture and why? Maybe as the film more or less concludes these questions are all distractions and Bobby's legacy is his games and what he achieved, mostly alone. Will he inspire others? We are certainly left with the understanding that his childhood (or lack of one) caused his troubled life.

Great documentary on a tortured genius.The story of Bobby Fischer, arguably the greatest chess player who ever lived. Examines his growing up, his emergence as chess genius at a very young age, his ascendancy to being World Chess Champion (at the age of 29), he's decline, disappearance, re-emergence, becoming a fugitive from US justice and his later years. The highlight is the famous showdown against Boris Spassky for the World Championship, in Reykjavik in 1972. Demonstrates well his genius, neuroses and general personality.Also particularly interesting is that there are very good attempts to explain his personality problems and mental issues. Sadly, genius and insanity often go hand in hand...

For a person that doesn't know much about chess and only knows some of the names and some of the basics about chess this is actually quite an interesting documentary and story.Bobby Fischer is in many ways a very odd person, very intellectual and kind of obsessed with chess and I don't know what it is, if he is giving a damn about how people and the press sees him or doesn't give a damn about it. But the fact is that he is very focused and into the game and that makes all the attention of a high profiled game between him (representing USA) and Spassky (representing Russia) too much for hi in many ways.It was an interesting and for most parts very factional based documentary about Bobby Fisher also for one like me that doesn't know much about chess.

A very comprehensive documentary about Bobby Fischer, this film doesn't constitute in itself a masterpiece of the documentary genre, yet its subject is very interesting to me.Bobby Fischer is this brilliant chess player coming out of Brooklyn and literally living the American dream. He starts playing at 6 years old, quickly outshining players in his categories, reaches a moment when he fights the Russian chess world champion in the height of the cold war and wins, thus making popular the game of chess even in an anti- intellectual country as the US and revolutionising the game of chess itself.Alas, soon after he pretty much goes insane, with bouts of paranoia and psychosis and ridiculous antisemitism (he was Jewish himself). The greatest win of the chess world was in the same time its greatest loss. It is painful to watch this great mind shrink and die under the weight of mental illness. The film is merciless in displaying it and does as much in bringing forth the legend of the greatest chess player of all time as it does to totally demolish it in the end. It is one of those stories where you would wish for the main character to die right after he wins the world championship. Too sad.As for the chess itself, there was none. It is strictly a layman's story, about Bobby the man and of the people around him and the human footprint of his existence.