Jack Reacher Movie Review!!!

A thinking man's action-thriller well worth checking out.  Read our review now!!!

Jack Reacher is a pretty damn good movie.  I remember all the flack this movie received when it was first announced that Tom Cruise was going to be playing the lead even before it went into production, mainly because he wasn’t big enough physically?  Well who did people want to play Reacher?  Vin Diesel?  Dwayne Johnson?  Perhaps a WWE wrestler? John Cena or Steve Austin?  Come on, we all know that would have been terrible.  In fact Cruise was probably the best guy to create awareness of this great character.

I wasn’t familiar with the character before, but since watching this I’ve picked up a copy of Killing Floor, Lee Child’s first novel featuring our protagonist Jack Reacher.  Funny thing is that for me, reading this after seeing the movie, in my mind's eye Reacher will always be Cruise and that’s no bad thing.  He makes the character believable.  He has enough range, from doing the likes of Jerry Maguire to Ghost Protocol, to be able to pull this off effectively.

The story unfolds with a setting that is becoming altogether too familiar in the US with a sniper shooting five random people on the street.  The police feel they have their suspect and it should be case closed with the mountain of incriminating evidence they have.  However, things are not that simple.

Queue Jack Reacher to do what the police can’t.  Former military police detective specializing in homicide with the usual elite military pedigree – Purple Heart, Congressional Medal of Honor etc etc.  A great line in the movie sums up what Jack Reacher does.  He solves murders like police detectives with the difference being that all of his suspects are highly trained specifically to kill.  Thus we know straight away that Reacher must be that much sharper, smarter and tougher to be able to get his culprits and stay one step ahead of the game.  With the appearance of some kind of vagrant, wandering from town to town, no address, no credit card, no iPad, no iPhone, the guy is a ghost.  People frequently assume he is some kind of low-IQ vagabond up to no good, much to his advantage. 

This is not a typical action movie and that needs to be understood from the get-go to prevent disappointment. This is primarily a detective thriller with action scenes thrown in from time to time for good measure.  Reacher assists Helen (Rosamund Pike), defence attorney for the suspect, get to the truth about what really happened but not without making a lot of people angry along the way and some help from the excellent Robert Duvall.

This is a really enjoyable movie.  My only gripes being that after watching my favourite TV show Castle for the last 3 years, the detective elements at times felt slightly obvious but never completely so.  Additionally, I went to watch this after watching The Raid Redemption again with Keeb over the Christmas holidays – not a good idea.  After watching Iko Uwais kicking ass non-stop for an hour and a half, the final fight in this felt a wee bit unsatisfying.  Reacher and one of the main bad guys go toe to toe in the finale and after a couple of hits they both end up on the floor tired and breathless.   Don’t worry, this is just me nitpicking.  The ending is still pretty damn good, the other fight scenes are pretty great and on the whole this is a highly satisfying movie.  I hope this gets enough success to warrant further outings for Cruise as Reacher on the big screen.

A thinking man's action movie, check it out!

Rating 4 out of 5.

Bobby