Jack Reacher

Cruise as the adopted son of Steven Seagal and James Bond? No, more of a tired guy next door who had seen and experienced too much, and coincidentally, most of it consisted of ingenious deductions and fights with green brains. McQuarrie likes traditional genres, in The Way of the Gun he borrowed from a western, while here he worships an old-fashioned slow thriller with slowly dosed information and anachronically slow tracking-shots and disturbing hints. It's not bad at all, at least if one accepts this vague relationship between camp and deadly seriousness. I really enjoyed the exposition (which everyone curses), but I found myself fading a lot during the scenes where Cruise a) moralizes (does he really feel that someone is going to believe the anti-system rebel?), b) interrupts the speeches of other characters almost like a mythical superhero, although there is no reason to do anything like that. As a detective story, it works (there are not that many of them, so you will appreciate it if some deductive twist is successful), as a thriller it has a beard-mustache-leather charm, as camp there are plenty of attractions (Herzog and Duvall are perfect, the bathroom battle potentially iconic). As the thriller start of the "Reacher" series? Well, I didn't understand at all what McQuarrie wanted to pull out against the competition, apart from the confused rambling between humor and seriousness, successful self-defeating jokes and a world where they pretend to have ultra-realism, and for a while the string that the original A-Team strummed. If he avoided the heroic bombast and kept his feet on the ground, it could have been a dignified, prudent crime film. But that wouldn't be enough for Jack Reacher, would it? Four stars for having had a lot of fun for most of the two hours, sometimes perhaps against the dignified intentions of the creators and little Tom's persistent efforts to be as hard as granite in his fifties and as seductive as Cupid. P.S. Someone should explain to Chris that blondes with big eyes are nice, but their unreasonable staring into the camera doesn't seem witty at all. (12/19/2012)

A decent enough film, almost a "thriller comedy" at times. It’s something in the style of Gibson's Payback, with one big minus - why did it have to be clear from the beginning that the person who did the shooting was not the arrested man, but someone else? Couldn't they have deceived us for at least half the film? I wouldn't have minded that at all. Otherwise, it’s a quality film in all respects. The opening shot through the rifle scope may steal from Two-Minute Warning, but then it's one great scene after another, with the bathroom scene being somehow perversely successful and the sensational car chase making me feel sorry for the beautiful mustang. I liked Tom Cruise better here than I did in Mission: Impossible, I liked Rosamund Pike as much as always, i.e., very much, and Robert Duvall was just the cherry on the cherry cake. As for composer Joe Kraemer, I hope that after Jack Reacher he will start getting more jobs like this, because he obviously has ideas and he knows how to do it. (06/15/2013)

It's hard to expect anything from a film with such a trivially simple title, ordinary marketing, and average posters. But the opposite is true. It is incredibly cleverly shot within its genre, and you have to praise the director's inventiveness and cleverness. Tom Cruise is more than just an ordinary protagonist, unlike Jason Bourne or Daniel Craig’s Bond (I love all three), but while those are followers of dynamic editing, raw directing, camera filters, and kinetic action, Jack Reacher takes it easy, with thoughtfulness and full-contact fights without any enhancements – it’s beautifully slow and hypnotic. One of the best crime films in recent years, brilliantly cast and stylistically stunning. Some shots deserve a “Hall of Fame” award, and the sound design deserves an Oscar. (01/11/2013)

With a few exceptions, I generally don't like these types of movies. This film is shot professionally and has a good cast, so it gives the impression of a solid genre spectacle, but one it cannot fulfill. The director seems to have no clear idea of which genre he wants to be part of. Even a top-notch crime thriller would not be ashamed of the opening scene of the assassination, and the film initially appears serious and repeatedly returns to this expression. But while the murders may look brutal, suddenly a serious scene is followed by shots from a crazy grotesque, and in my opinion, this change of tone does not work at all for the film. Genre hybrids sometimes work and they can be charming, even irresistible. Unfortunately, Jack Reacher isn't one of these in my opinion. The ending is also predictable and completely undermines the feeling of the scenes that were done well. Overall impression: 25%. (01/28/2016)

I’m really not surprised that Tom wanted to play Reacher, even though a 7-foot muscleman would have suited the part better. In any case, he plays marvelously (as if he were making fun of it all in some places), this type of guy suits him. A precisely built up story, emphasis on dialogs and hilarious one-liners. McQuarrie’s firm hand safely delivers One Shot to the desired destination. A little too slowly, unfortunately and there probably won’t be a sequel. Shame. - You think? - All the time. You should try it. (04/19/2013)