Starring: Tom Cruise / Rosamund Pike
Writer/Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Runtime: 130 minutes
- Good action sequences
- Tom Cruise still on his game
- Werner Herzog as psychopath
- Chevelle SS
Jack Reacher is a good hybrid of an action flick and a detective movie, but the opening sequence will make anyone's palms sweat, as a sniper picks people off one by one in a crowded Pittsburgh park. Watching this opening sequence take place, as body after body hit the ground, it was impossible not to think of what the producers were mulling when they cancelled their premiere: Our opening sequence is exactly what people don't need to see right now.
It doesn't take long, however, to settle into the movie and enjoy it for the ride that it is. It's a fairly straightforward story: did the police catch the right man for the shooting? Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) doesn't think so.
An ex-Army cop, Reacher is a now a tough guy drifting around the US. He shuns the trappings of divers licenses, credit cards, and email addresses. Reacher sees news of the shooting on TV and heads to Pittsburgh to nose around. Reacher knows the suspected shooter from his old days in Iraq, and while he believes the suspect is a murdering scumbag, he doesn't think he's the murdering scumbag in this case. Reacher teams up with the suspect's lawyer and slides into the action movie groove: put clues together, beat people up, put clues together, get shot at, put clues together, drive cars really fast, and so on. What's not to like?
The movie is based on the book One Shot by Lee Child. It's a very popular literary series, which means that Jack Reacher himself could have jumped out of one of the books and played himself on the screen and fans would still have grumbled about him being wrong for the part.
I was on the subway last week and heard a man go on at length at how Tom Cruise could never play Jack Reacher (too short, too pretty, he's Tom Cruise, damnit), while the woman he was with nodded in earnest agreement. Neither of them had seen the movie yet, but they were sure that Cruise could never play that character. News flash: he just did.
It bears repeating that movie makers generally aren't interested in being faithful to a book. They may pay lip service to the idea, but what they really want to do is make a movie that makes money. Surprise, surprise.
The Bourne Identity is probably the best example of this, as screenwriter Tony Gilroy was told to not even read the book before writing the script. He was given the title, an outline, and that's it. Robert Ludlum fans may have been disappointed by this, but the movie cashed in for over $120 million. Book? What book?
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| Tom Cruise and Rosamund Pike |
Besides, all of this ignores two things: Tom Cruise is a good actor, and a very bankable action star. He's 50, but could pass on screen for 35, and his skills haven't slipped. Jack Reacher's action sequences are well done and about as believable as action movies allow them to get. It's been known for a long time that Cruise does all of his own stunts, but I read that in this movie he also did all of his own stunt driving. If that's true, then this guy's a damn good driver. He makes a Chevelle SS walk and talk in this movie and let's face it: any movie that has a Chevelle in a car chase is worth half a look.
The supporting cast is good, too. Rosamund Pike is good as the defense attorney, and the chemistry she has with Cruise is on the money. I was glad to see the script didn't go all the way down Love Interest road, though. Robert Duvall turns up for some needed comic relief, and Werner Herzog drops his director's hat in order to do a turn as a European psychopath. Richard Jenkins is in a few scenes as Pike's father, but his talents are entirely wasted in a part too small for him, both literally and figuratively.
Fans of the Jack Reacher book series may not be entirely happy with the film, but they certainly could have received much worse. See it.
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