Starring: Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins
Overall Rating: 68.0
With "Jack Reacher", director Christopher McQuarrie takes Lee Child's series of novels about a military investigator and turns it in to an unfortunately predictable crime saga.
After a former military sniper is arrested for the random shooting of 5 innocent civilians, Reacher (Cruise) is called in to try to make sense of everything. What unfolds next plays out like a bad season of "24", with clues and conspiracy theories abound.
Tom Cruise shows his guns as one of the premiere action stars, even after turning 50. He maintains a charismatic intensity we've seen from him recently that made it almost seem like he carried over his character from "Knight and Day". The supporting cast does a decent job playing along, including the lovely Rosamund Pike, but the story never feels like it's taking you anywhere, and the supposed "twists" are all fairly ill-conceived.
The one shining light with "Reacher" is what has made McQuarrie one of my personal favorites: his ability to craft a realistic gunfight. McQuarrie's brother is a Navy SEAL, who has previously worked with him as a technical adviser and helped make the action scenes feel real and intense. Add in Cruise performing his own driving stunts, and the action sequences do live up to par.
Going in, I had hoped for a military drama showing off McQuarrie's quick witted writing and Cruise's action acting, but unfortunately what I was left with was a dumbed down, predictable crime drama.
Individual Ratings
Enjoyment Factor: 7
Dialogue: 5
Acting: 6
Direction: 7
Audio/Visual: 6
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