Never Go Back has very little going for it. With an utterly unremarkable script at the core, and not helped by the directing, cinematography, music or acting, this is a disappointing fail for Cruise, who also produced the movie. Let’s hope he never goes back to Reacher, it’s not worth it.
The life of chess prodigy Bobby Fischer has rich potential for drama. He was a poor kid from Brooklyn who taught himself chess and became the youngest ever US chess champion. In the Cold War era when the Soviets dominated the game, Fischer was the solitary western player who could compete with the Soviet grandmasters. But the line between genius and madness is a thin one, and it was rarely thinner than in the case of Fischer.