Jack Reacher

Rating: 5/10 (7 May 2013)

I heard the news about this film that fans of the books were not all happy with the casting of the lead title character, I was willing to give it a chance seeing how much it was advertised. Basically in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania five people have been randomly shot dead near the North Shore Trail by an expert sniper, Detective Emerson (The Last King of Scotland's David Oyelowo) and the police quickly find and arrest the shooter James Barr (Joseph Sikora) who was in the Army, but he claims he is innocent, and says "Get Jack Reacher". Alex Rodin (The Cabin in the Woods' Richard Jenkins) is the District Attorney and is told that Reacher (Tom Cruise) himself is a former U.S. Army Military Police Corps officer, and now a drifter who stays off the grid and is only found when he wants to be found, but he suddenly turns out after seeing the news report about the shooting incident. The authorities refuse to allow him to see the evidence, but they let him see Barr who has been put in a coma after being beaten by fellow inmates, and counsellor Helen Rodin (Die Another Day's Rosamund Pike), Barr's defence attorney, wants to try and save him from the death penalty. She will allow Reacher to see the evidence if he becomes lead investigator, he is uninterested, confidentially revealing Barr went on a previous shooting spree in Iraq but was not prosecuted because the victims has committed major crimes that the Army wanted forgotten, so Reacher wants to take him down. He agrees to investigate the case if Helen talks to the families of the killed people, he finds discrepancies at the location, and determines the shootings must have been done in a van for cover and to stop bullets dropping on the ground. Helen reports what she found out, and he concludes that the shooting was not completely random, one of the people was the local construction company owner and was covered up by four innocent people being shot, but someone is trying to stop him investigating any further, and they frame him for the murder of a young woman he met. Reacher follows leads and finds an Ohio shooting range, former U.S. Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant and owner Cash (Robert Duvall), he only agrees to talk if the drifter proves his shooting skills on the range, which he does, it turns out a Russian gang masquerading as legitimate businessmen are the real perpetrators, their leader is the elderly man known only as The Zec (German film director Werner Herzog). The gang kidnap Helen with the help of insider Emerson, they hold her hostage at a construction site, so Reacher kills the various guards with the help of Cash, before confronting the Zec about the conspiracy, and then killing him. In the end, Cash flees the scene, and instead of proving his innocence Reacher stays on the run as a wanted man with confidence Helen could clear his name, her father was in the crime as well, and Barr wakes from his coma with no recent memory, but he accepts he was guilty of the crime and will face the consequences. Also starring Jai Courtney as Charlie and Michael Raymond- James as Linsky. Cruise does prove a pretty good choice as the steely and straight-faced former military man turned maverick investigator, the other cast members do their parts fine, including Herzog as the slightly pantomime but still dark villain, the story is reasonably easy to follow, there are some engaging chase and all guns blazing explosive action sequences, it is an alright start to what could be a franchise and series, a fun crime drama. Worth watching!