It’s tough to make a compelling character out of someone suffering from mental illness; ultimately, all you can do is look on with pity and horror. (And also sympathy, thanks to some hammer-subtle backstory.) It’s even tougher to make a national hero out of one. But when it’s 1972 and the Cold War seems to be turning in favor of global communism, you might just decide to put brash chess prodigy Bobby Fischer (a twitchy, bug-eyed Tobey Maguire) up against Russian champ Boris Spassky (a ponderous Liev Schreiber) and hope for the best. Sure, the chess-playing priest you’ve brought onboard to be his second (a cagey Peter Sarsgaard) is full of warnings about mixing such a cerebral game with such a fragile psyche. But hey, sometimes you have to — well, it’s right there in the title. There’s pleasure in the film’s look and the dialogue, but director Edward Zwick (Love and Other Drugs) overworks his presentation — too much exposition, too many closeups, too many bits of period footage, too many visual gimmicks — and neglects his characters and situations. (If the priest is so concerned about Fischer’s paranoia, why doesn’t he object to his choices in audiobooks? If the government is so interested in the outcome, why don’t they do more to help? Etc.) Nor is there much discussion of the game’s workings — because, of course, the real match takes place off the board. Too bad. (2015) — Matthew Lickona