Jack Reacher (2012)

After the successful action experience with Skyfall, I thought why not welcome Tom Cruise, the forever an action star, back into my life. As a child I was a big fan of Top Gun and I think (I’m not sure about most of my childhood movie experience) Risky Business as well – maybe it’s just that scene of him dancing that I have imprinted in my brain but there’s no point discussing my confusion any further. The point is, Tom kind of disappeared for me and even though Jack Reacher was surprising, I don’t see Cruise becoming my favorite again any time soon.

The story line of Jack Reacher isn’t the most refreshing, it’s the usual innocent man accused of something he didn’t do and the main hero discovering a conspiracy behind it all type of plot.Then again, it wasn’t over the top and they did solve it in a manner of style for an action movie (then again, it’s based on a book so …). Reacher’s character was decent, not too hero-esque (he seemed rather regular and that was believable) but as I’m not a Cruise fan, I didn’t really care that much. I was more invested in the small supportive character Linsky (Michael Raymond-James) who died way too early. Yes, I like Raymond-James and I was kind of hoping to see more of him but I had no luck with that. To be completely honest, he’s presence didn’t really pay off in the end – he was there to show how horrible the bad guy was – because there were too many filler story lines. The kind that add almost nothing to the entire movie except running time.

The beginning of the movie was promising though, it reminded me of a Criminal Minds episode with a sniper as a serial killer. The thing kind of lost its magic some how and I can’t really remember the exact moment when I figured the whole thing out before Reacher did. I guess I’m so used to movies and twists now that it’s difficult to surprise me – I’m not saying that just to boost my ego but movies do tend to follow a certain invisible formula that is most often predictable.

Now, I was surprised during the whole movie because there weren’t any sex scenes nor even a kiss between Reacher and Helen (Rosamund Pike). I think over the years I have gotten used to that kind of formula in action movies and every time the movie doesn’t take the characters into the bedroom, I’m positively surprised. Surprising was also the fact that I actually laughed during this movie! Seriously, I was not expecting a genuine emotion while watching Cruise bust out his action moves but the scene where he is hiding from the cops in the middle of the crowd and a guy hands him his hat was funny. It had no dialog, just the physical gesture of a guy knowingly helping out Reacher who’s running away from the cops – somehow that was a very pleasant moment.

Thinking back, that was the only moment I really enjoyed and it was over in a second, ironically, the movie doesn’t really have other stand-out moments. It has a nice flow most of the time, some dialogs tend to go too long but it’s quite balanced with the action/chasing scenes. Maybe the movie would have worked a bit better with a regular running time because two hours tends to be way too much for me these days. Especially since the plot is quite focused on the surprise element that happens in the end which sadly, as I already mentioned, didn’t really work out for me. I was sort of anticipating it by the time it was happening and I would’ve preferred to be shocked by the twists and turns. Maybe it worked in the book but in terms of a thriller movie the process of getting there kind of ruined the whole ending. But maybe its subjective and that’s just the case with me, I do tend to think ahead of the story and when that happens, I often get bored.

Final words go out to the British actress Rosamund Pike who was the woman in a desperate need to be saved in this scenario. She is a gorgeous woman but man, I’m annoyed when movies make British people American or the other way around. How hard is it to cast an American actress or make the role British? because I kept thinking she sounds weird and that’s not what I’m supposed to do. Despite of that, she hold it her own, even though she didn’t do much and was captured in the end but what’s an action  movie without the man saving the woman.