A very decent action thriller

Rating: 8/10 (31 May 2013)

The trailer, the tagline and all the talk about some books that this is supposed to be based on are doing only to hurt the film, which is actually pretty good. The characters are well defined, the acting is good and the plot and story are both thrilling and believable, with just the right amount of violence and special effects. Somebody actually took the effort to direct the drive scene based on the muscle car that Cruise was driving: powerful, noisy, it's back going all over the place from poor handling.
Rarely these day have I seen a direct and effective thriller of such a good quality. Yet, when you see the trailer, you hear the horrid tagline with 'Reacher will reach you' and read the even worse tag from IMDb, which makes Jack Reacher sound like a superhero, you see that Tom Cruise is playing the lead role and that it is all based on some pulp books that sound a lot like comics, you can't help thinking the movie will suck, and that is making a great disservice to a film that was clearly made with care and effort.
That doesn't mean it is a masterpiece of cinema, mind you. The ending is horrible. You can feel the Hollywood corporate stench on you, soiling all the good from the rest of the film. Also I thought Rosamund Pike's character and acting were taken from some male fantasy of the subservient woman, ready to accept her place beneath the great man. And the black guy... worse actor of them all, yet the starting scene, when he appears with his gun in his hand, trying to look all confident and dangerous... what a joke.
Bottom line: a movie worth watching, even if flawed. It sets an example on how to make a decent movie even from a blockbusting action thriller that is supposed to cash just because of the lead actor.