SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISCHER **** OF **** grade is A+
Hey do you want to know why no GOOD family films are made? BECAUSE YOU WONT SEE THEM! Hollywood is an enterprise and reacts to money, if you don't shell out 7 bucks to see something smart like Searching for Bobby Fischer and do for trash like Lost in Space, you will get more stupid films. I don't want to hear that no good family films are made because you didn't see Searching for Bobby Fischer and wouldn't know what to do if another such brilliant film came your way.
That being said, Searching for Bobby Fischer is one of the best and smartest family films ever made. A film that is heart-wrenching as it is true to the family relationship. I loved this film, it has an insight on how children relate to their parents and how the parents want to see them succeed in everything.
Josh (Max Pomeranc) is an ordinary 7 year-old kid who loves playing baseball. One day Josh is playing outside and finds a chess piece. He then teaches himself to play chess. One day he is walking with his mom (Joan Allen) and convinces her to stop at a park were hustlers play competitive chess for money. Josh sits and plays against a grungy man and loses, but catches the eye of one hustler (Lawrence Fishburne) who sees the move Josh puts on the guy and writes down his name as someone to look out for.
His mother tells his father (Joe Mantegna) that he played chess and so the father challenges the son to see how good he really is. Josh loses somewhat quickly and gives his father a shrug, but his mother sees through this. "Josh doesn't want to beat his dad." She tells him, so the father plays him again. This game is won by inspired play from Josh.
The father finds a teacher for Josh, in a crusty old-timer (Ben Kingsly) who teaches him first the basics and then to play like Bobby Fischer. Bobby Fischer is the greatest chess player of all time, who started at a young age and went on to beat Russia and then go into captivity. Many parallels are made between him and Josh but there is one big difference, Josh has too big a heart to hold his opponents in contempt. Josh uses the mixture of his teacher's knowledge and the street-smart chess hustler to make it through chess tournaments.
I made the statement that this film is one of the best family films ever made, it is also one of the best films made in the nineties and a film I have seen on repeated outings. I also said that I love this film, and I firmly believe that you will too if you see it. You have no excuse now that you have read this review. We so rarely get to see truly great films, please don't miss the chance to see this film.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews