Really interesting film with a wide mood range

Rating: 8/10 (28 June 2014)

The last movie I saw before this one happened to be Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol and the problem I had with that film is that it was kind of dumb. The center was on the awesome action scenes and everything else was filler. Jack Reacher on the other hand may not necessarily be a super smart movie, but I was surprised to find in it a relatively interesting and intelligible detective story instead of an over the top action movie I would normally expect Tom Cruise to star in.
The main issue I have with this film is the dialogue. Some phrasing sounded artificial, cartoony even, like something someone wrote for an episode of CSI rather than something a real person would actually say. I think that might have been intentional. Sometimes it would fit the stylistic approach of a comic book that this movie was slowly beginning to take as it was progressing.
Either way, the rest of the screenplay was quite good. The story was not predictable and it grew at just the right pace. The movie had a low-key small-scale provincial feel to it, which I at first found disappointing, but this small scale gives the story room to grow, twist and turn and so it does. Some things you can see coming but others not. There are a few scenes in the film that, for just a second, deliberately make you presume the wrong thing. I have not seen a good detective story in a while and this is definitely one.
Tom Cruise plays Jack Reacher, a guy who comes in when a murder suspect asks for him by name, and Jack is an interesting character to base a movie around. Jack knows what he is doing; he is intelligent and has some fighting skills thrown in for good measure. However, he is not invincible and does make mistakes. Also, his moral fiber is a little twisted. This brings realism to his character. Also the character is not revealed all at once but slowly, as the movie progresses.
The story lost me a little with some of its weird decisions and a few unanswered plot questions, but overall I really liked the mixed tone of the movie.
It has different vibes flowing through its veins. It has some really dark streaks but also some comedy, sudden slapstick comedy even. It has action and car chases but also some slower investigation work. The music at times sounds like it's from an adventure movie. It is an interesting chameleon.
Also unusual are the morals this movie wears. I already mentioned the somewhat dark main character, and there are a few dubious decisions this character makes, which other good characters then accept. At the same time the bad guys are not vilified to the extreme and some people you expected to get punished do not get punished. I am not complaining. I loved it.
In another movie, such a wide palette of tones, characters and morals would not have worked and the film would have felt all over the place and disjointed but in this film it works. This was a dark yet fun movie and different from anything I can recall seeing in the last few years.