‘Borg/McEnroe’ Toronto Review: Shia LaBeouf Tennis Movie Mixes Backhands With Psychoanalysis

It’s safe to say that “Borg/McEnroe,” which opened the Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday night, makes its ambitions clear from the start. The film from director Janus Metz opens with a title-card quote from Andre Agassi (who otherwise has nothing to do with this particular tennis story) that concludes, “Every match is a life in miniature.”

Make that two lives in miniature, because “Borg/McEnroe” sets out to encapsulate the troubled journeys of tennis stars Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe within one epic match. That came in the 1980 Wimbledon final, when the emotionless Swede was going for a record fifth consecutive Wimbledon title and the brash American was trying to climb to No. 1.