Somewhere in the aftermath of the infamous couchjump heard
round the world, Tom Cruise became a bankable performer with a penchant for
entertaining action flicks.
Jack Reacher is the latest in a set of
diverting pictures, even if it’s not the most inventive movie you’ll see this
month.
Cruise is the titular protagonist, an army cop turned
drifter who lives off the grid in order to cherish fully the freedom for which
he and his comrades have fought.
After
an army sniper is arrested for the killing of five civilians, Reacher comes to
Pittsburgh to close an old case and accepts the offer of attorney Helen Rodin
(Rosamund Pike) to investigate further before running afoul of a criminal
enterprise run by the weary survivalist “The Zec” (Werner Herzog).
Christopher McQuarrie pulls double duty as screenwriter
(adapting from the Lee Child novels) and director, and it’s apparent that he’s
the same man who brought us the script for
The
Usual Suspects.
Jack Reacher is similarly structured, with small moments (like
bullets falling on the floormat of a car) repeated and explained later.
But unlike
Suspects,
Jack Reacher
doesn’t rely on a last-minute game-changing gimmick, opting instead for a more
straightforward approach that lets us discover the clues just a few seconds
after Reacher does.
The dialogue is
snappy, with Reacher rattling off one-liners like an American James Bond.
The plot turns on Reacher’s observations, including a few
deductions that might impress even old Sherlock.
And Cruise does a good job as the passive action
hero, without much of a personality but with enough natural charisma to carry
off the script’s cleverer lines.
Cruise
manages to make Reacher an engaging figure without sacrificing the enigma that
otherwise makes his character a cipher.
Herzog is a particularly great choice for a villain, with
his hoarse whispers conveying menace and malice tempered by his overwhelming
ennui.
When The Zec retells his
backstory, Herzog’s droll delivery imbues the dialogue with subtle terror that
most other character actors would have overplayed or at best managed
unsuccessfully.
Pike, though, is
unfortunately interchangeable with most other actresses, serving as a generic sounding-board
against which Reacher can be exceptionally bright.
Her chemistry with Richard Jenkins, who plays
her father, is a success, but she doesn’t do much in the film until she’s cast
in the damsel-in-distress role – a shame, since Pike seems to be just shy of the
A-list.
In the third act, though, a near-cameo from Robert Duvall
proves always welcome.
Playing a grizzly
ex-Marine, Duvall is a good combination of “familiar face” with “begrudging
sidekick,” turning an action movie trope into a reunion with an old favorite.
Jack Reacher
isn’t fantastically inventive, its rejection of flashy stunts and show-off
writing meaning it probably won’t be overly memorable in a few months.
This is no
Mission Impossible, for example, where the only person smarter than
the main character is the screenwriter, who can’t help but show off
cleverness.
What saves the film from
obscurity, though, is the smart script paired with Cruise’s performance as the
hero.
Jack Reacher is
clearly the start of a prospective franchise, to which I say – more of this
clever writing done without bombast is welcome.
Jack Reacher is, like
Taken, a film that chooses to do well
rather than to do flamboyant; if you want flash, stay home, but if you want a
no-frills cerebral action film, reach for
Reacher.
Jack Reacher is
rated PG-13 “for violence, language and some drug material.”
There are several fight scenes and shootings;
most are bloodless but still moderately intense.
There’s an F-bomb or two, a few scenes set in
a bar, and a mention of cocaine.
Cabin in the Woods
(2012) – Post-Avengers, I’ve been
on a quest to find out more about this man called Joss Whedon, and so far I
haven’t been disappointed; Firefly is
as clever as its devotees declaim, though Alien Resurrection left something to be desired.
Cabin in the Woods, though,
counts among the former; screenwriter Whedon brings his tongue-in-cheek
self-awareness to bear on this horror/sci-fi satire, which trots out that
oldest and ignoblest of horror tropes – a mixed bag of coeds in the titular
cabin – and does something delightfully original with it. It’s Evil Dead by way of Shaun of the Dead. Without spoiling too much, the film quickly
reveals that the five college students are being watched by cameras wired to a
control booth, where two blue collar technicians (Richard Jenkins and Bradley
Whitford) are manipulating the supernatural goings-on in the woods. I’ll stop there, because Whedon and director/cowriter
Drew Goddard are up to something quite smart here, original without disobeying
the classic rules of the horror game.
Much of the fun of the movie comes from trying to understand the
relationship between the cabin and the technicians, and the payoff is well
worth the cognitive exertion. Avengers fans will likely revel in the
presence of Chris Hemsworth in the cabin, his football jock a far cry from his
regal turn as the Asgardian lead in Thor;
the rest of the cast of coeds, though, is mostly negligible. The real entertainment value – Jenkins aside,
though he’s sharp as always – comes from the script, which wears its affection
for the genre on its bloodied zombie sleeve.
