Jack Reacher
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Starring: Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Werner Herzog, Robert Duvall
There’s about as much to be written regarding Jack Reacher the film, as there is about Jack Reacher the man, which is to say, not a lot.
Based on Lee Child’s series of novels, this latest Tom Cruise vehicle is a nuts and bolts crime thriller that never strays from genre conventions, but capably delivers two hours of throwaway entertainment nonetheless. Anyone expecting a breathless, glossy action romp of the same calibre as 2011’s Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol will likely be disappointed, however that’s not to say there isn’t enough in Jack Reacher to satisfy the majority of cinemagoers.
The film’s opening sequence is arguably its most compelling, as a series of first-person shots show a sniper calmly shooting five seemingly random people in a ruthlessly clinical fashion. Shortly thereafter, the massacre is revealed as a set up—to the surprise of no one—and when the wrong man is arrested he refuses to confess, instead issuing a single request—“Get Jack Reacher.” Enter Cruise.
Besides being a former army policeman, the titular anti-hero is something of an enigma —no home, no family, no real personality— and as such, Cruise’s performance is predictably one-note. However, whilst calling Reacher one-dimensional would be an understatement, it would also miss the point. Sure, there isn’t the slightest pretense of any emotional development, and he lacks any discernible motivation beyond a rudimentary desire for ‘justice,’ but Cruise’s roguish husk gets the basics right. He’s got a mean right hook, throws out some choice one-liners and looks good driving a muscle car. And really, in Jack Reacher, that’s all that matters.
Cruise is ably supported by Rosamund Pike’s feisty lawyer Helen, and Robert Duvall’s droll retired Gunnery Sergeant Cash, but by far the most entertaining piece of casting is provided by legendary filmmaker Werner Herzog and his turn as an absurdly maleficent villain known as the Zec—helpfully translated as ‘the prisoner.’ Herzog’s fantastically bizarre, glass-eyed criminal-in-chief stands out in a film that is otherwise unremarkable, and hearing the veteran director relate, in his distinctive parlance, the tale of how he chewed off his own fingers in a Siberian gulag, is worth the price of admission alone.
Again, it should be said that there’s nothing extraordinary whatsoever about Jack Reacher. However, as a competent, unfussy B-Movie, it doesn’t do an awful lot wrong, and enjoyable flourishes such as Cruise threatening to drink a man’s blood from his boot, and Herzog’s brilliantly eccentric cameo, ultimately elevate it to a position well below greatness, but comfortably above mediocrity.
Source:
http://www.westerngazette.ca/2013/01/11/crime-drama-doesnt-reach-for-excellent/