Tom Cruise overcomes miscasting and adds JACK REACHER to his rich repertoire of diverse roles

Rating: 8/10 (4 February 2013)

(SPOILERS!) JACK REACHER. A private investigator (they used to be called P.I.'s in the old days) named Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) is reluctantly called in by a pretty defense attorney (Rosamund Pike) to unravel the mystery behind 5 seemingly random shootings. But Reacher finds out the accused guy, Barr (Joseph Sikora), is the trigger-happy Army soldier who was responsible for several shootings but got away with it. And Reacher, who was also previously in the Army as a criminal investigator, has vowed to put him away for life if he catches Barr doing it again. As layer by layer of this crime story unravels, we find the pretty lawyer, Helen Ronin, actually going against the grain -- her father (Richard Jenkins) is the D.A.! And Reacher himself is such a shady character both Ronin and her father, at odds with each other from the get-go, try to dig for skeletons in Reacher's closet. Is Barr guilty, or is he just being set up? Throw in for good measure a police detective (David Oyelowo) who has his own secrets and the guilty sniper himself, Charlie (Jai Courtney)... as Reacher and Ronin delve deeper, somebody is willing to murder again and again.
Christopher McQuarrie is the brilliant writer behind 1995's THE USUAL SUSPECTS (a favorite of several cinephiles I call friends); 2000's THE WAY OF THE GUN; 2008's Tom Cruise Hitler-themed film VALKYRIE; and 2010's Angelina Jolie/Johnny Depp whodunit THE TOURIST. McQuarrie writes convoluted plots well, and let's see how his two upcoming Tom Cruise films will fare (supposedly a TOP GUN SEQUEL, and MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE 5 in 2015). But with JACK REACHER, McQuarrie (who wrote AND directed) again amazes us with his skill of crafting a film with seemingly easy plots that quickly unravel and exposes truths and untruths in startlingly compelling manner. I'm sure if JACK REACHER, based on the Lee Child novels, had a secondary female role, McQuarrie would have been up to the task and weave it in seamlessly.
Lee Child fans are quibbling about Cruise's (mis)casting, pointing out such specifications as "he stands 6'5" and weighs 250 lbs..." but Cruise is such a magnetic movie star that you find yourself being drawn in... in fact, much as others would dismiss this as just another Bond/Bourne wannabe, McQuarrie has crafted a worthy thriller, with only two setbacks: (1) as character study, JACK REACHER fails to give us insight into what makes Reacher tick, how was his past like (an in-passing dossier narration by Ronin and/or the D.A. father doesn't count!), and (2) the chemistry between Tom Cruise and Rosamund Pike, the sexual tension is there, but is left obliquely hanging in the wind. Pike is lovely (never more so in WRATH OF THE TITANS) and her characterization, strong, isn't a mere decoration or caricature of a lady lawyer, and I don't know if in the novel "One Shot" Reacher and Helen have a bed scene, but the film's last third leaves you thinking it's like a Charles Bronson dramatic thriller but with Bronson ignoring the delights of, say, a Lee Remick or Jill Ireland. I say this without being a male chauvinist pig, just my usual hopeless-romantic self.
Robert Duvall, all of 82 (an a renowned Argentine tango aficionado), and esteemed film director Werner Herzog, 71, add welcome brio as an ally and a heavy, respectively, while TV star Alexia Fast makes her mark as a wilful nymphet who meets a grisly end. Cruise tries to give a different spin to such a character as this, although on the printed page it could be not much different from his signature Ethan Hunt, or the Jason Bourne/James Bond cornucopia of indestructible secret agents, and because of McQuarrie's able pen and direction, succeeds (nitpicking critics be damned). The supporting cast, especially Courtney and Oyelowo, and even a trio of young goons, are also up to par. All through out the action never lags, although McQuarrie and cast have chosen to paint the film as a character study with a relaxed pacing and layer-by-layer exposition.
Kudos to Joe Kramer's throbbing music; also, Caleb Deschanel photographs JACK REACHER glossily. As a footnote, I've been seeing the trailer of JACK THE GIANT SLAYER (directed by Bryan Singer of X-MEN fame), and I can't wait to see how McQuarrie has penned the characters of Jack, the princess, the townsfolk and the giants.