Per our custom, my brother and I went and saw a movie on Saturday. With none of the new movies screaming “you need to watch me now,” we decided to watch Jack Reacher, a movie that we had seen in trailers for at least the past six months. And while it will probably not end up on my top movies of 2012 list when I get around to writing that (need to wait for Zero Dark Thirty in January), it was still a pretty decent movie.
We both thought the same thing as we were leaving the theater: it seemed to us that the movie had some very Bourne elements to it* — a guy shows up and is seemingly able to beat up folks pretty effectively with a limited back story telling us why and how. And while I usually am not a huge fan of the sequalization of Hollywood movies, I am glad that Jack Reacher is a character that has appeared in 17 books and that we will (hopefully) get to see more of him going forward.
*Not Bourne Legacy. That movie was awful. I’m talking about the three Matt Damon Bourne movies. Those are legit.
The opening few moments are pretty intense, especially in light of the recent tragedy in Newtown. With one of the sniper’s targets being a woman carrying a young child, and while the little girl herself wasn’t a target, it was still a little unnerving, at least for me personally. What follows is an investigation into the murder of five folks, and what seems like a pretty open and shut case regarding the alleged sniper. Instead of being pressured into a confession, as many under the watchful eye of the district attorney had, the suspect writes three words instead: “GET JACK REACHER.”
Who is Jack Reacher? Apparently he’s the son of a Marine and a retired military policeman for the Army.* He shows up, gets to work, and finds out all sorts of stuff that the police may have missed. He also beats people up. It’s pretty entertaining. Without spoiling what happens, he’s pretty bad ass and winds up solving the case.
*One thing that kind of bothered me was that they made him a commissioned officer. Based on my admittedly limited knowledge of how the military police works, it seems to me that someone like Jack Reacher would be a part of CID, or the Criminal Investigation Command and would therefore be a warrant officer or senior NCO.
Again, the movie has its flaws, but it was markedly better than at least one movie that I saw in the past few months. It’s an enjoyable movie, though I don’t think it is necessarily something that you need to rush out and see in theaters. Tom Cruise continues to amaze me, and while he is not doing some of the crazy stunts he pulled off in Ghost Protocol, he still does a decent job of making things believable to a certain extent. His character is also the right amount of ass to make him likable as an “anti-hero” if you wanted to view him that way. Finally, Robert Duvall shows up and pretty much owns the scenes he is in, and you can’t go wrong with the lovely Rosamund Pike, a Brit who should definitely be in more movies over here in America.
Until next time…
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