PG-13, 130 min.
Director: Christopher
McQuarrie
Writers: Christopher
McQuarrie, Lee Childs (novel “One Shot”)
Starring: Tom Cruise,
Rosamund Pike, David Oyelowo, Jai Courtney, Richard Jenkins, Werner Herzog,
Alexia Fast, Vladimir Sizov, Joseph Sikora, Michael Raymond-James, Josh Helman,
Robert Duvall
“Jack Reacher” is the type
of movie that reminds me of the way my middle child likes to do his chores. He
refuses to do them in the efficient ways we try to teach him. He prefers to
come up with his own way to do things that rarely take into consideration his
end purpose. He likes to take the long way around things. It seems almost
everyone in “Jack Reacher” likes to take the indirect approach. Reacher himself
is the biggest offender.
Reacher is a mystery. He’s
so aloof that everyone else has to say his name incessantly in order to
remember it. Hell, Reacher has to say his own name more than most people just
to keep it straight. Anyway, Reacher is a former Military Police investigator
who joins a lawyer to prove the innocence of a man he feels to be guilty of
killing five people in a city sniper shooting. See what I mean? Instead of
looking at the actual murders to begin with, Reacher starts pursuing a lead
that begins when a young woman in a bar who seems to be picking him up, but he
infers that she’s setting him up.
Anyway, I don’t see much use
in tearing apart all the plot points. The truth is, this is a murder mystery
and for those who are looking for such a thing without putting too much thought
into it… well, Jack Reacher’s your man. Tom Cruise is the titular Jack and the
rest of the cast is pretty impressive compared to the material they’ve entered.
I’m sure this will please many well enough for a home rental, but it’s a pretty
good thing not many bothered to see it in theaters. I wouldn’t be able to get
too enthused about a continuing series of these movies.
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