Jack Reacher

Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins, Robert Duvall, David Oyelowo, Werner Herzog, Jai Courtney

Dir & Scr. Christopher McQuarrie (based on a book by Lee Child)

Jack Reacher is a man out of time. And so too is this film. In an age of Jason Bourne and a rebooted James Bond, this film simply isn’t up to scratch. A rubbish plot, some decidedly wooden performances, a complete lack of any sort of humour (well, any intentional humour) and a villain that would have been much more suited to a Bond film than this dire piece, Jack Reacher is utterly forgettable. Avoid.

A sniper lines up a bunch of random people in his sights, picks them off one by one, and disappears. All the clues lead back to one man, a former soldier, who, when asked to confess, requests just one thing – Get Jack Reacher. Reacher (Cruise) is a ghost, who reappears to help figure out just what has happened and why. Joining forces with defence lawyer, Helen (Pike), they discover nothing is quite as it seems. Blah blah blah.

I disliked much of this film. And not just the obvious. For example, the score bugged me immensely – tugging you along against your will and hitting you over the head at key moments. The story is unnecessarily convoluted and clumsy and, in the end, completely irrelevant. The dialogue is beyond cheesy and clichéd, and not in a good way. You will laugh, and you’re certainly not supposed to. There are a few jokes and I guarantee you won’t laugh at them. The acting is, almost across the board, either rubbish or simply unsuited to the film. But the biggest problem is that we have moved on from this sort of thriller – it felt like a tv movie or an episode of CSI, lacking any cinematic magic we have come to expect from this sort of genre. Reacher doesn’t even come close to the likes of Bourne or Bond. But even taking it down a notch, Cruise’s Reacher completely pales in comparison to the likes of Liam Neeson in Taken.

Much has been said of the miscasting of Cruise as Reacher – apparently he’s supposed tall and weathered and rugged. If you haven’t read the Lee Child books, I don’t think this should really make a difference. Although, Cruise is decidedly Cruise-like in this film. I have nothing against Cruise, but he’s really phoning it in here. Pike is simply awful as a gifted defence lawyer trying to make her name in the shadow of her DA father (Jenkins). Wooden, deer-in-the-headlights throughout, I simply didn’t care if she survived or not. Jenkins is woefully under-used. As is Duvall, who is one of the few rays of light in the film as an ex-vet, running a shooting range. Oyelowo, who I have not seen before, plays a detective and is almost as awful as Pike. Herzog, I have to confess, is probably the reason I rushed to see the film as soon as it came out. He is brilliant. Unfortunately, he is so clearly a Bond villain and simply doesn’t fit into an ultimately mundane story. I was rooting for him though – I simply wanted him to kill EVERYONE.

There were, I admit, a few good bits. As noted above, Duvall and Herzog set the screen ablaze every time they appeared. The scenes between Duvall and Cruise were also particularly good – the dialogue suddenly rang true and it all started to make sense. Unfortunately this was short-lived. The final stand-off between Reacher and Herzog’s villain, The Zec, is refreshingly uncharacteristically anti-climatic. But these elements did not make up for the many, multiple, various, numerous crap bits.

I guess if you’re a big fan of Child’s Reacher, you may be curious about this film. By all means, satisfy that curiosity. You’ll probably regret it though. Everyone else – simply avoid.

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Jack Reacher: You think I'm a hero? I am not a hero. And if you're smart, that scares you. Because I have nothing to lose.