"Jack Reacher” is old school filmmaking at its best. By “old school,” I mean the people who made it started with a good script and then built from there. Born out of the pages of a novel titled “One Shot,” the story is complex, but never convoluted. As layer after layer peels back, and as revelations are made and traps are sprung, I was in awe of how well assembled the script was. More than that, the dialogue grabs you and makes you listen, as though the guy who wrote it is holding a gun to your head and daring you to look away from the barrel while he talks.
Part and parcel to the penning of a good script was the creation of a memorable central character. “Jack Reacher” is an “old school” murder mystery, so the filmmakers needed someone who would bring a smile of recognition to people who had seen the movie, like saying “Popeye Doyle” to a fan of “The French Connection” summons fond memories of the classic cop drama. By the end of “Jack Reacher,” the title character will be etched into your memory.
Reacher is war veteran who prefers to stay off the grid, but believes in justice and can materialize like a ghost when compelled to do so. One of the funniest scenes in the movie has two men discussing who Reacher is and concluding he’ll be too hard to find, and then Reacher steps into the room and introduces himself.
Reacher is good in a fight (in one scene, he has no trouble taking out five guys, and in another, he humorously demonstrates a knack for improvisation), but he’s also observant, smart and refuses to take anything at face value. When he shows up in Pittsburg, Pa., to investigate a mass shooting, he tells the public defender assigned to the suspect to visit the families of the victims. From her account of their stories, Reacher sees cracks no one else did.
The next step in the “old school” approach to filmmaking was the selection of the right director. Not just a director, or even a good director, but the right director. Here, I can’t imagine anyone but Christopher McQuarrie, who also co-wrote the script with the novel’s author, Lee Child, calling the shots.
His deft work on the opening scene, in which a sniper kills several civilians along a waterfront, and the ways in which alternate views of that same scene come into play later as we go inside Reacher’s head, is impressive. But more than that, McQuarrie demonstrates genuine skill for camera placement, editing and pace. Each scene has a point, and McQuarrie knows how to make it.
Casting the right actor for Reacher also was important. Here, there’s room for debate. I like Tom Cruise in the role. He makes you believe Reacher has the brains and the brawn needed to get to the bottom of the case. But given some of the things Reacher does to get to the bottom, Cruise is likely more sympathetic and less physically imposing than the man Child created in the pages of his book. (I haven’t read the novel, so I could be wrong.) That said, I enjoyed watching Cruise in this movie. He’s a good actor, so the slightly atonal quality of his performance is easily forgiven.
Finally, when you go “old school,” you need some well-timed action. McQuarrie delivered with a steady hand and a certain level of inventiveness. I especially enjoyed the car chase, which starts out with the police pursuing Reacher, and winds up with Reacher not only trying to escape the cops but also trying to chase down the people who set him up on a murder.
My only quibble with “Jack Reacher” is the inclusion of a character played by Robert Duvall. While simply seeing Duvall on the big screen is a pleasure, his character is too convenient and used in a way that shifts the tone of the movie slightly in the wrong direction. Just when things need to go darker, Duvall’s quirky gun shop owner keeps the tension from boiling over.
But I’m quibbling. I would love to see more Jack Reacher movies. Here’s hoping this one does well enough to bring Reacher out of the shadows again and into the spotlight to dispense his unique brand of justice.
Rated PG-13 for violence, language and drug material. Three-and-a-half stars out of four.