Film: Jack Reacher

GENRE: Action/Crime

RATING: PG-13 for violence and language
RUNTIME: 2 hours and 10 minutes

STARRING: Tom Cruise (Mission Impossible, Valkyrie )

Rosamund Pike (Wrath of the Titans) Jai Courtney (TV’s Spartacus)

DIRECTOR: Christopher McQuarrie (The Way of the Gun)

WRITER: Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects, Valkyrie)

PLOT: Loner, Jack Reacher finds himself involved in a case where a military sniper is accused of shooting five random victims.  

FIVE OBSERVATIONS:

1 I was expecting more action than dramatic investigative speeches. The mystery was fine and all but it tended to drag throughout.

2 Cruise gets to have to some great one-liners, especially in his bar scene.

3 The ‘surprise’ bad guy is pretty easy to spot if you look at how certain roles are cast. Sometimes the most obvious ‘bad guy’ is just a giant predictable misdirect.

4 I would be frightened to have Pike as my defense attorney. Reacher spends a bunch of time having to slowly explain simple connections. A lawyer that can’t connect the dots on her own shouldn’t be allowed to practice law.

5 I don’t know if a certain actor is supposed to be a surprise in the last quarter of the film, but it was sure fun to see him.

RECOMMENDATION: Wait for the DVD

UPCOMING REVIEWS: Hitchcock, Django Unchained