Reel-View Ratings: The Bigger The Beard, The Better The Movie

IN THE NAME OF MY DAUGHTER

As her casino-owning mother engages in a power struggle with the mafia, a young French divorcee heads home, falls in love with a bad man, marries him … and disappears. All the pieces for a salacious thriller are here, which is why it’s bewildering that director Andr T chin somehow made a boring film out of it all. One-note characters fail to elicit much emotion, and the pacing of the film drags and then crams too much in at the end. It was supposed to be an emotional examination of this supposed crime of passion, but the only thing audiences will feel is apathy.

Plays at 11 a.m., 2:30 and 6 p.m. Sept. 26, and 1, 5 and 9 p.m. Sept. 28 at the Movie Museum

PAWN SACRIFICE

The fascinating life of Bobby Fischer — one of the greatest chess players of all time before his eccentricities drove him into obscurity — graces the big screen in this Tobey Maguire-led biopic. Centered on the 1972 World Championship match between Fischer and Russian grandmaster Boris Spassky, the film lingers over Fischer’s foibles through flashback and drama, much as all biopics about tortured geniuses must do these days. Pawn Sacrifice could’ve still been riveting cinema, though, were it not for the fact that it makes the unusual choice to feature the actual chess games as little as possible. It’s a void that can’t be ignored.

Opens Sept. 25 at Kahala Theatre