BOBBY FISCHER VS. THE REST OF THE WORLD

Darrach, who covered the 1972 match for Life, pursues the knight-errant through his pretournament madness: will he or won't he agree to play? Dodging the press, hiding out in Douglaston, driving to and returning from Kennedy, holding up the planes, all while his cohorts try to convince the Icelanders (and Bobby) that he will come round. When he finally made it, the ""games"" had just begun: a match postponement, a public apology to Spassky, a dispute about cameras, a forfeited game, a duel in the ping-pong room, a Soviet charge of ""electrochemical neurosabotage."" Darrach hints at Bobby's underlying instability: his relation to his mother, his compulsion to be chess champeen, his psyching himself into a frenzy for the over-the-board kill (not, as some would have it, to upset his opponent). Darrach leaves no feathers unruffled, revealing Bobby in all his strait-jacketed splendor. At times he degenerates into sensationalistic gaudiness, compounded by cutesy remarks like "". . .it was raining cantaloupes,"" ""he dropped the subject like a used Kleenex."" If you can tolerate these, you'll find a thorough, engaging documentary.