As a film, Jack Reacher reflects the aims of best-selling author Lee Child, who created the character in the mold of classic loner, knight-errant types of westerns and other literary and film traditions. You’ve seen this type of hero — and this type of movie — before, but when it’s done well, as is here, it doesn’t matter. It’s still highly enjoyable.
On an otherwise typical morning in Pittsburgh, a sniper shoots five people seemingly at random. The police investigate the scene and through the evidence left behind very quickly apprehend James Barr (Joseph Sikora), a former Army sniper with homicide in his past. The case against Barr seems open and shut, but rather than sign a confession, Barr writes three words on a notepad: “Get Jack Reacher!”
“Who’s Jack Reacher?” everyone asks. They’re not left to wonder long — Reacher (Tom Cruise) shows up after catching a news report about the shootings, and he’s not there for the reason the district attorney (Richard Jenkins, Killing Them Softly) or Homicide Detective Emerson (David Oyelowo) expect. In his prior life as an Army investigator, Reacher got to know James Barr, so as far he’s concerned, the authorities have their killer, and the sooner he’s put to death, the better.
It falls to Barr’s attorney, Helen Rodin (Rosamund Pike, Wrath of the Titans), to find a way to enlist Reacher’s help, rather than his indictment. Of course, she’s able to get him to look into things — if she didn’t, there wouldn’t be a movie — and what he discovers as he starts poking around is anything but open and shut.
Try to ignore how formulaic and “TV episode mystery of the week” that all sounds, because that’s by design. Lee Child to date has written nineteen novels around Reacher as a loner who drifts into town, kicks the bad guys teeth in, and moves on. So in order to faithfully tell a Reacher-type story, you have to put that set up into place. It’s simply a given, or else its not Jack Reacher.
If you’re able to get past those tropes and the somewhat giggle-inspiring truth that Tom Cruise is playing a character that’s 6’4″ in print (Cruise is 5’7″ tops), you’ll find a film that’s been crafted by writer/director Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, Valkyrie) with a deliberately old-school approach to storytelling. McQuarrie doesn’t rush the plot along or spoon-feed the answer to the mystery to the audience via Reacher and the other characters. Yes, Reacher is clever and hyper-observant, but he’s got to think things through — he’s not Sherlock Holmes, to whom everything is apparent within seconds of glancing. The audience is given a chance to watch Reacher think problems through and draw conclusions, and just how well McQuarrie shows this process on-screen is almost as impressive as the fact that he bothers to take time to do it at all.
As for the film’s violence, there’s also a very deliberate “classic” approach — no computer augmentation or imagery for the car chase that’s a central set-piece of the film, and no fancy fight choreography for Reacher’s hand-to-hand confrontations. It’s all grounded in a gritty, visceral realism that helps keep things impactful and entertaining, despite the fact that you know more or less where it’s all going.
As for the actors’ performances here, no one’s being asked to do much heavy lifting. Cruise’s Reacher is as likable as any of his other action heroes, though he certainly has a sharper edge than, say, Ethan Hunt of the Mission: Impossible franchise. Rosamund Pike is bland and a little out of place as the underwritten Helen; she doesn’t detract, but she doesn’t display a whole lot of on-screen chemistry with Cruise or the rest of the cast, either. Thankfully, the script leaves romance out of the proceedings.
Someone who does have proven chemistry with Cruise is Robert Duvall, who by the time he arrives in the film’s last third is a welcome sight. Without doing a whole lot of actual acting (like so many of Hollywood’s elder statemen these days, he really doesn’t have to), Duvall provides some much-needed comic relief as things wind toward the down-and-dirty finale. Don’t be surprised if you start having Days of Thunder flashbacks as you watch him and Cruise banter back and forth.
Indeed, all of Jack Reacher might have you recalling older, better action thrillers of old, the types of movies that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis made twenty years ago. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily, since it’s not reductive in any way. It’s fairer to say that if you liked those older films, you’ll certainly find lots to like here.
Score: 3.5 out of 5
Jack Reacher
Starring Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins, Werner Herzog, David Oyelowo and Robert Duvall. Written for the screen and directed by Christopher McQuarrie.
Running Time: 130 minutes
Rated PG-13 for violence, language and some drug material.