Jack Reacher
I haven’t read any of Lee Child’s 17 novels about Jack Reacher, a former Army Investigator who has gone off the grid since leaving the military. Realistically speaking, I probably still won’t after seeing Christopher McQuarrie’s detective thriller based on Child’s book, One Shot. That said, McQuarrie and Tom Cruise, a controversial casting choice that pays off superbly, make me want to delve deeper into Reacher’s stories.
One of the things I liked about “Reacher” is that McQuarrie (who wrote “The Usual Suspects” and “Valkyrie”) doesn’t structure this film like a typical action thriller. The film feels more like a noir mystery, which is ideal for what would normally be standard-issue genre moviemaking. By casting Reacher as someone akin to Sam Spade or Phillip Marlowe, McQuarrie and Cruise make him into an atypical action hero, even if his military background should be enough to let us know that he can kick ass with the best of them. Cruise is terrific in the role, with the same, no-nonsense energy of the “Mission: Impossible” films, along with the “man of mystery” charm of his role in the underrated “Knight & Day.” And any doubts about Cruise’s abilities to be a badass in hand-to-hand combat are put to rest handily when he takes on five guys at once, as well as leading the police of a riveting chase down the backstreets of Pittsburgh while trying to track the people who have been following him since he got in town.
Like any good noir, the film is populated by interesting characters, and McQuarrie has gone above and beyond with casting. There are a few times I don’t really believe Rosamund Pike as the laywer who brings Reacher onto the case, but her and Cruise have solid chemistry. As Pike’s District Attorney father, Richard Jenkins is a man of certainty, having never lost a case. The two most interesting characters, though, are a gun range owner and a criminal boss. Why are they interesting? They are played by Robert Duvall (who makes the most of his few scenes as the gun range owner, and who had a bigger role than I expected) and the German director, Werner Herzog, who should have been cast as a shadowy and enigmatic villain a long time ago. But the film belongs to Cruise, who uses his star swagger to breathe rough life into Reacher, and possibly, a new film franchise.
