Directed by: Christopher McQuarrie
Starring: Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Werner Herzog, and David Oyelewo
Good film. Four out of five stars. Godfather-level films gets five out of five so this isn’t a knock at all. Solid action film with good action-mystery roots and an interesting setting.
Tom Cruise “Tom Cruise-ifies” every film he comes on, so this film is a bit above its peers in its category. It’s based on a best-selling series of airport novels by Lee Child, and basically adapts them in their best possible form, minus the fact that Book-Reacher is 6’5” and Tom Cruise is 5’7”. The barroom fight is the epitome of the kind of “understated” cool that Jack Reacher is meant to be, and it’s genuinely fun to watch; the kind of Western/Noir blend that makes the books so successful. Werner Herzog shines as the story’s villain, and the premise of the setting - a distinguished ex-military police who roams the earth fighting crime - is JUST funny, cool, and inoffensive enough that it’s honestly fascinating to watch. I don’t know any military personnel that might do this, but I can think of some who’d want to watch someone do it! It’s also PG-13, so it hits a wave of marketability that a lot of this genre doesn’t reach. Good time
Tom Cruise “Tom Cruise-ifies” every film he comes on, so this film is a bit above its peers in its category. It’s based on a best-selling series of airport novels by Lee Child, and basically adapts them in their best possible form, minus the fact that Book-Reacher is 6’5” and Tom Cruise is 5’7”. The barroom fight is the epitome of the kind of “understated” cool that Jack Reacher is meant to be, and it’s genuinely fun to watch; the kind of Western/Noir blend that makes the books so successful. Werner Herzog shines as the story’s villain, and the premise of the setting - a distinguished ex-military police who roams the earth fighting crime - is JUST funny, cool, and inoffensive enough that it’s honestly fascinating to watch. I don’t know any military personnel that might do this, but I can think of some who’d want to watch someone do it! It’s also PG-13, so it hits a wave of marketability that a lot of this genre doesn’t reach. Good time
I have a theory that the reason there are so many “lone guy beats/shoots people” movies — as seen in the works of Liam Neeson and Tom Cruise for example — is because every man up to a certain age likes to think they could totally waste these losers if someone really gave them a reason. I like to refer to this article vis-a-vís that mindset, which argues that most of our fighting skill is more ego than experience, and that most of us would just ruin our night in a fight more than we’d effortlessly renew our masculinity. But even with the knowledge of that reality, I’ve had a friend tell me he wants to get in at least one fight in his life, just for the experience, and he DOESN’T want the experience of getting beaten and humiliated, so he - and ergo, lots of us - must think we’ll be able to win ... somehow. Jack Reacher is arguably how we get our fantasies of martial skill out, and couch it in some real-life excuse (i.e. he was in the military ... AND a cop!). We also do this with video games. And soccer. Better video games than real life, I say!
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