Hollywood Product: ‘Jack Reacher’

Lee Child’s bestselling literary badass gives Tom Cruise some big shoes to fill.

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  • Courtesty of Paramount Pictures
  • NIGHTS OF THUNDER: Tom Cruise IS Jack Reacher, sort of

GENRE: Opening shot of prospective thriller franchise

THE PITCH: Super-sleuth military policeman turned dispossessed drifter Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) aids crusading lawyer Helen Rodin (Rosamund Pike) investigate conspiracy involving a sniper accused to shooting five random citizens in Pittsburgh.

MONEY SHOTS: A “CSI”-type montage reveals a fingerprint on a quarter in a parking meter. Reacher credibly takes down five assailants in a bar fight. Later, two guys with baseball bats attack Reacher, but in a confined space, do more damage to each other. Reacher beats up one guy with the back of another guy’s head. In the film’s centerpiece car chase, Reacher pursues the bad guys while policeman pursue him.

MONEY SOUND: The engine of Reacher’s borrowed Chevrolet Chevelle SS rumbles like the overture to the chase, and shows a little influence from last year’s Drive, in a good way.

SO WHO IS THIS REACHER FELLOW? Apart being a massive badass with Holmesian powers of observation, Jack Reacher lives off the grid and owns basically nothing but the clothes off his back. The film finds low-key humor in Reacher’s habit of taking the bus and borrowing cars from people who try to get the best of him. Cruise might be physically miscast as the six-foot-five character, but to his credit, the actor doesn’t attempt to seem taller than he is, with Pike looking him eye-to-eye for the whole movie.