Friday, December 21, 2012

Review: 'Jack Reacher' starring Tom Cruise


It's easy to understand why fans of Lee Child's novels were less than enthused by the idea of Tom Cruise as their favorite antihero, Jack Reacher. For all intents and purposes, Reacher is a mountain of a man, at roughly 6"5' and a barrel-chested 250lbs. Cruise on the other hand, is knee-high to a knee and probably doesn't rank high on the list of most intimidating action stars. But none of that really matters. Truly, what Cruise's buddy Christopher McQuarrie(Valkyrie) does in making the actor look like a towering force of nature is pretty incredible. Everything else about it? Well....

The thought that kept running through my head while watching Jack Reacher was that if we replaced Cruise with Nicolas Cage and released it in January, we'd be calling this the worst film of the year. It has that same bizarre sociopathic comic energy that Cage tends to flock to, think Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, topped with a hearty helping of pulp. The difference is Cruise, a refined actor who has tossed most of that aside to punch and kick things in franchise flicks that make big bucks. He's too good for this movie, yet there he is hamming up some pretty awful dialogue and selling it like his life depended on it. He, in some small way, elevates what could have been a terrible rag of a film. I don't believe in the idea of "guilty pleasure" movies, but if one was going to fit the bill it'd be Jack Reacher

On the "bad timing" scale, the opening sequence of Jack Reacher ranks pretty high in the light of recent events, and it won't be surprising to hear a little uproar over it. Set in Pittsburgh, it begins with a military sniper coldly and quietly gunning down five seemingly random people. In what is otherwise a workmanlike effort from McQuarrie, he draws upon some real dread as we follow along the sniper's scope, hovering an instant too long on a child walking with her nanny. The killings aren't at all swift, but what follows is an efficient and rapid fire escalation of events with a minimum of backstory. A soldier is taken into custody as the culprit, but rather than asking for a lawyer he simply asks for Jack Reacher, a guy everybody has heard of but apparently nobody knows. By the time Reacher gets there, the suspect has been beaten up in prison and left in a coma.

Confused why a man he hates would ask for his help, Reacher is nonetheless convinced by public defender Helen Rodin(Rosamund Pike) to investigate, without really knowing what she's getting to. Reacher, who McQuarrie wisely keeps hidden from us until he can make a grand tough-guy entrance, is an ex-military badass-turned-drifter who apparently wanders the country delivering his own brand of justice. The rest of the plot is both ridiculous and convoluted, and it isn't long before you figure out it doesn't at all matter why these people were killed.  It's all just a means of having Reacher break a few bones, and also affords a chance for us to see eccentric(and I'm being generous) documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog in the hands-down oddest performance of the year as an ex-Siberian prisoner forced to chew off his own fingers to avoid frostbite. He's still a little bitter about it, actually. Although he only gets a couple of scenes, they're all indescribable gems of pure insanity, with Herzog displaying all the subtlety of a James Bond villain.

McQuarrie's direction is functional and unspectacular, but he does present a grungy throwback style of action film we don't see that often anymore. The Usual Suspects' shocking script remains his claim to fame, and he's proven over the years to be a solid writer of genre fare. But he's a little all over the map this time, and the tone bounces maddeningly from painfully serious to...well, Nicolas Cage.

Cruise is impossible to turn away from as the remorseless Reacher, who as it turns out is a cross between Sherlock Holmes and Taken's Bryan Mills. Cruise is clearly eating this role up with a spoon, relishing the chance to show off his age-defying physicality (with help from McQuarrie's willing camera), not o mention Reacher's laconic sense of humor. It's a different version of the character than fans of the novels will recognize, but Cruise is convincing enough as a take-no-prisoners sort who defeats his foes through sheer force of will just as much as through physical dominance. The only issue is that he's not quite enigmatic enough for a guy who is supposed to be totally off the grid. Short of Herzog, Cruise doesn't get a whole lot of help from what should've been an excellent cast. Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins, and David Oyelowo are mostly underwhelming in their supporting roles, while Robert Duvall is a hoot as an ornery old gun shop owner.

A short and savage rain-soaked brawl gives way to an anticlimactic conclusion that is meant to show just how far Reacher will ultimately go. As the first chapter of what they hope will be a franchise, it's little more than an introduction with bigger things apparently to come. There's a lot about Jack Reacher that is an absolute train wreck, but it's such a compelling wreck that you just can't look away. That's got to be worth something, right?

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