Poor man's James Bond/ young man's Joe Friday in a watchable crime thriller.

Rating: 6/10 (25 December 2012)

If you aren't familiar with Tom Cruise by now, you've been living under a dumpster for the last 25 years or so. Probably eating out of it as well. So when I say Jack Reacher is another vehicle for Tom Cruise to play another variation on his usual smooth badass persona, you should know to what I am referring. If you don't, I'm sure that half eaten enchilada sprinkled with coffee grounds won't repeat on you, so go ahead.
Jack Reacher's plot is pretty tight: what seems at first to be a slam dunk mass murder case is thrown for a loop when the prime suspect asks the DA for Jack Reacher. And what do you know, Jack Reacher appears almost instantly to take up the investigation; nobody was able to contact him, but dangit, Jack just KNEW (a common side effect of his extreme smartiness which shows the audience that he's on top of everything already). Then, brushing aside multiple advances from every living female in the film , our hero proceeds to systematically take apart the perfect case against the suspect to reveal a much deeper motive behind the shooting: but now powerful villains are aware of Reacher's digging, and Helen, the plucky young female lawyer who hired him, is in danger as well. It's gonna take a whole lot of fistfighting and shootin' to bring the real villains to justice, and to showcase Tom's- er, Jack's, legendariness.
JR was done well, action hero clichés aside. There was a plot twist or two that kept me guessing 'til the end, reasonable acting, and some nicely drawn out suspense. The most impressive scene was the car chase at the climax -- I do believe that one set a new bar for movie car chases. Of course the gentlemen in the audience will not be immune to Helen's flaunted cleavage any more than the ladies will ignore Jack's gratuitous bare chest. And so the checklist of watchableness is complete.
One more thing: if you crossed James Bond with Joe Friday, could he beat Chuck Norris? Let's put it this way; Chuck Norris is the only living person who can punch a living cyclops between the eyes. Yeah, I didn't think so.