A real let down for fans

Rating: 5/10 (4 January 2013)

'One Shot' is my favourite book. Not my favourite Jack Reacher book. My favourite book. So when I heard they were not only going to be making a Reacher film, but making 'One Shot', I was ecstatic. Then I heard who would be playing Reacher and like 99.9% of fans I thought to myself, "this must be an April Fool's joke. A 5'7" skinny guy playing the hulking 250 pound, 6'5" Jack Reacher? This can't be happening." Sadly it was. And then the trailer came out and my worst fears were confirmed. Cruise was not being buffed up by any type of body suit, he wasn't being made to look taller with trick photography and he wasn't putting on the raspy 'animal-like' voice I always imagined Reacher to have.
Lee Child once made a great analogy to Jack Reacher. He said "does anyone remember the story lines in the Dirty Harry Movies? Not a chance. But they sure as hell remember the character." The Reacher books are about a single thing, and that is Jack Reacher. Don't get me the wrong, the stories in 90% of the books released so far are masterpieces and could easily be made into great films. But they still remain a vehicle for which Jack Reacher can thrive in. And the producers proved that they realised this (albeit very late in the piece) by renaming the movie 'Jack Reacher'. A little in-your-face for my liking, but I could see why it was necessary so I didn't hold it against them. However I did reserve my right to hold Tom Cruise's casting against them. And I was right to. Did Tom Cruise pull off the great character of Jack Reacher? Not in your life.
Cruise was cast badly, and then went on to play the role even worse. Not a great combination if you're an actor. Heath Ledger took the opposite route in his role as The Joker in Christopher Nolan's 2008 masterpiece "The Dark Knight". He was hugely criticised for being completely wrong for the part when he was cast and we all know how that turned out. Cruise unfortunately did not rise to the challenge in the same way.
For starters, I'm reasonably confident he was the shortest person in the film. Not one effort was made to make him look the least bit impressive stature wise. His haircut was ridiculous. He looked like a guy who goes to the hair salon twice a week for touch-ups. In fact Jai Courtney in the role of the Charlie had what I always imagined to be the perfect haircut for Reacher. Perhaps he would've been better placed in the role? Cruise's shoulders were not broad enough. At one stage a character asks "I'm looking for a guy who could kill a man with one punch?" To which he is directed straight to Reacher. Get real. Rosamund Pike was probably more likely to kill someone that way than Cruise. Cruise did not alter his voice one bit for the movie. This was a huge disappointment for me. I had really hoped he would do something like what Christian Bale did when he was in the Batman suit, only not quite to the same degree, but for the whole movie. Cruise sounded almost feminine performing some of the lines. Lastly, he kept bloody smiling (or smirking, whatever you want to call it). I was OK with him cracking the odd joke here and there, because Reacher can be a bit of a smart-ass, but he didn't have to look so damn proud of himself every time he did it. Reacher's an animal, 24-7, he (very) rarely smiles and he takes life very seriously.
The script was solid, it stayed pretty faithful to the book. I found the jokes and one-liners a little too frequent for my liking and took away from what should have been a dark atmosphere. Unfortunately, Reacher was never really challenged physically. Sure, everyone he fought was bigger than him, but that's only because Cruise is so short. Never once did I think to myself 'how's Reacher possibly going to take down this guy?" Which always makes for the best fight scenes. One part of the script I did not like at all, again regarding the 'bad guys', was when two of them, whilst trying to attack Reacher, were practically fighting each other even harder. And just because they wanted to get through the door first? I felt like I was watching 'Home Alone' or something. I assume they were going for comedic value but it just went far too far for my liking.
The rest of the cast were solid at best, in fact I found Rosamund Pike well below average in her performance, but I wasn't too bothered by this because they were the epitome of a support cast. They weren't who people came to see. People came to see Cruise and he let them down. The interesting thing is that the movie isn't being panned across the board, which is testament to how good the story is. It's a great story and could easily have been done without Reacher, which is basically what has happened for people who haven't read the books. They don't have those to compare the character to and so they leave the theater quite happily. And that's great for them. But for the rest of us they have ruined a great character. I hope when I read future books I can still picture the character the same way I always have. Sadly, I fear I may struggle.