A good action thriller for your holiday week:
Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Robert Duvall, Richard Jenkins) – Jack Reacher is a first-rate crime thriller that feels like a combination of Batman and Bourne. Yes, I know the reviews haven’t been very good. But trust me, Jack Reacher is far better than the recent Bond snoozer and a vast improvement over Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
Reacher (Tom Cruise), a character from a series of 17 books by Lee Child (born Jim Grant), is a former military police officer who disappeared for unknown reasons. When five seemingly random people are shot outside Pittsburgh’s PNC Park, Reacher suddenly shows up to make sure that the killer gets his due. Reacher knew the guy arrested for the murder, having investigated him in the military. The guy was a sniper and not a very good one. Reacher is no slouch; he’s a top investigator and a killing machine. In this way, he reminds the viewer of Bourne. But as the movie progresses, what we find out is that he is an altruistic guy whose main motivation is true justice, just like Batman.
The local police don’t need his help; they have their killer. So he offers his services to the guy’s lawyer, Helen (Rosamund Pike). She wants to keep him off death row; Reacher wants the guy to get what he deserves. And then “stuff” happens: revelations, deceptions, and plot twists galore.
The movie is both intense and tense. It’s a riddle and a puzzle. And while this is partly a “shoot-em-up,” the violence is mostly implied, hence its PG-13 rating. Reacher is almost infallible, but he has flaws. He is alone and likes it that way. He’ll do almost anything to solve a case. He kicks butt and makes all the right moves.
Cruise plays it cool, perhaps a little too much like Ethan Hunt (of the Mission Impossible series). But as you would expect, he is in great shape. We get the obligatory Tom with his shirt off (almost as bad as Matthew McConaughey). And he runs just like in virtually every movie but not as far this time. I do long for the days when Cruise actually acted for a living; this action hero stuff in below his talent but good for his pocketbook (after all, Katie and Nic are probably expensive ex-wives).
Rosamund Pike (Barney ‘s Version, Die Another Day, An Education) isn’t star-struck either as a character or as an actress. She plays a good second fiddle to Cruise but she holds her own, playing the lawyer who isn’t trying to exonerate the alleged assassin, just keep him out of the electric chair. And she is going up against the district attorney, who just happens to be her father (Richard Jenkins of The Visitor and more character parts that you can count). Pike is beautiful and talented, consistently playing older than her actual age (33).
Jack Reacher also reunites Cruise and Robert Duvall (they starred in Days of Thunder with Nicole Kidman). Duvall (Oscar winner for Tender Mercies to go with his five other nominations) plays Cash, owner of the shooting range where the suspect practiced). He becomes Reacher’s sidekick and partner, taking on the guys who are trying to keep Reacher from finding the truth. These guys provide a comic book element in the movie, including a ruthless foreigner resembling a Batman villain). And it is here that many of the critics fault the film. Reacher, the protagonist of the books, is a quiet drifter, not a super-hero. But for the viewer who hasn’t read the books (like me), he appears to be a complicated, lethal do-gooder with a secret past.
If you want a fun, thrilling, suspenseful two hours that isn’t as violent as Bourne or quite as dark as Batman, spend some time with Jack Reacher. You won’t regret it.