Jack Reacher yes,no, maybe so

[Garak]

Trekker4747 wrote:

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No, I don't agree. It IS possible to not like an actor and as a consequence of that avoid going to see his movies.

Maybe in the case of some other hack actor this is true. Not, however, in the case of Tom Cruise. Everything that guy touches is pure gold.

I thought you were smarter than that.

[Trekker4747]

JarodRussell wrote:

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Mark this day in your calendars.

Finally someone gets bitched at because he likes a film without going into details.

?!

I assume he was talking about the review I made a few days ago after seeing a screening. Where I did go into [some] details.

Santa's Balls wrote:

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Maybe in the case of some other hack actor this is true. Not, however, in the case of Tom Cruise. Everything that guy touches is pure gold.

I thought you were smarter than that.

I would hardly say everything Cruise touches is pure gold. He's not an actor who I think has a lot of range as, well, usually in his movie he's playing himself which is usually a smirking jackass. He DOES have his moments, however, I've liked him most of the Mission Impossible movies and I lied him in this movie. But in many of his movies he's pretty hard to take as anything more than, well, a smirking jackass. Which I think a lot of his personal life bleeds into that.

I'm not passionately for or against the man's work, but he's never really impressed me. I'll usually only go see his movies if the movie itself looks worth watching enough to tolerate looking at Tom Cruise's mug for two hours. This movie? Had that. I would have paid to go see it even if I didn't get the screening tickets. Minority Report? I can't say that about, it didn't look interesting enough to put with Tom Cruise. (Though I did eventually see it and found the movie mostly mediocre.) I think Mission Impossible 2 suffers from "Tom Cruise-ism." Where as the first one and the most recent one do not suffer from too much of The Cruise.

He's just not a good actor. He has too parts he plays, either himself or not himself. Himself is a smirking jackass, not himself is a less smirking everyman. The smirking jackass shtick may have worked for him in his 20s but in his 50s? Not so much.

I think this movie offers the right levels of Cruise and something closer to what he should be doing. I did see a trailer in front of The Hobbit the other night for a movie of his coming up that looks pretty good. (I fail to recall what exactly the movie was, though.)

Anyway, I recommend this movie overall as I DID enjoy it and may be see it again in theaters. My only problem with it is that I don't the the stakes in it are high enough or matter enough to the main characters to make everything that happens in it worth it. It's a damaged narrative that maybe came across better in book form that was lost in translation.

It's a movie where Reacher could have failed in what he was doing and nothing would change or matter. Sure, an innocent man would have probably gotten the death penalty but I don't know how much that matters when the audience isn't given a chance to care about the supposedly innocent man. So why do I care if he's innocent or not? Hell, everything the movie tells me is that the guy was an unhinged jackass who probably should have been in prison anyway.

Take the movie "A Time to Kill" based on the book of the same name by John Grisham. In the movie and the book a black man's grade-school aged daughter is brutally raped and left for dead by two white rednecks. The men are eventually caught and are set to be put on trial. The father, played by Samuel L. Jackson on the movie, takes matters in his own hands. He believes that in the deep, racist, south he's in the two men will likely plea it out and not spend any time in jail so he guns them down. He's quickly caught and put on trial for a double homicide where our "hero lawyer" working out of a small, underfunded office must work to get him acquitted. (Played by Smirking Jackass #2: Matthew McConaughey)

In that movie there's some other layers to it, mostly dealing with the racist culture of this deep-south town. But our accused man we KNOW something about him. Sure, we know he killed these men in the very definition of The First Degree but we've some understanding of why and we kind of want Matthew McConaughey to win.

In this movie we don't quite have anything like this, we just sort of go on the word of the characters that the accused shouldn't get the death penalty even though we supposedly saw him savagely gun down several people in the opening of the movie. There's little reason to care about what has happened (even once the plot begins to unravel into a deeper conspiracy).

But, still, there's a lot of good moments in the movie and I enjoyed it, just wasn't very invested in the plot.

[the G-man]

I think "Magnolia" and "Tropic Thunder," not to mention "Born on the 4th of July" all show Tom Cruise can act and act well.

[Captaindemotion]

JarodRussell wrote:

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Mark this day in your calendars.

Finally someone gets bitched at because he likes a film without going into details.

What the hell are you talking about? I was being totally sincere. I thought the review Trekker posted was a thoughtful and useful review of the movie.

[od0_ital]

I went & saw the movie before work the other day. It wasn't great, but it was entertainin', which is the point of goin' to see a movie.

Tom Cruise does what he does, of course, and its kind of obvious he's hopin' this will be a new franchise for him, but I'd rather see more Mission: Impossible movies.

And while I haven't read the books, I did pick up One Shot this mornin' while shoppin', complete with Tom Cruise's face on the cover. People bitchin' about that are doin' it just to bitch - it happens with every based on a book movie that the book gets re-released with a new cover that ties in with the movie. LotR, Twilight, Hobbit, John Grisham, Stephen King, Tom Clancy....get over it already.

[Star Wolf]

I am seeing a trend. Every reviewer who has not read the series are saying Tom Cruise is the best thing about the movie and the convoluted mogtivation for the crime and tghe defense attorney lets the story down.

[Harvey]

Admiral_Young wrote:

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I had no idea Chris McQuarrie wrote and directed this. He previously worked on the script for Bryan Singer's "Valkyrie" that starred Cruise so there's a little history between the two. I am a little more interested in this than I was before because of this. Plus the TV spots have been pretty decent.

He also did a re-write of the latest Mission: Impossible movie for Cruise, although he didn't end up getting credit. IMDB says he is currently writing the next film in that series, plus the stalled Top Gun 2. Cruise must like him.

[Mr Light]

I didn't know anything about Jack Reacher, and I was very disappointed in the movie. I thought it was going to be a big action movie, but all the action is in the trailer. It's a conspiracy thriller. That's not what I was going in for... Also the beginning of the movie implicates a much larger, more important story than it actually turns out to be. All in all, it's pretty mundane.

[Captaindemotion]

od0_ital wrote:

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I went & saw the movie before work the other day. It wasn't great, but it was entertainin', which is the point of goin' to see a movie.

Tom Cruise does what he does, of course, and its kind of obvious he's hopin' this will be a new franchise for him, but I'd rather see more Mission: Impossible movies.

And while I haven't read the books, I did pick up One Shot this mornin' while shoppin', complete with Tom Cruise's face on the cover. People bitchin' about that are doin' it just to bitch - it happens with every based on a book movie that the book gets re-released with a new cover that ties in with the movie. LotR, Twilight, Hobbit, John Grisham, Stephen King, Tom Clancy....get over it already.

Out of curiousity - why do you go to the effort of typing "in'" at the end of every verb? Wouldn't it be just as easy to write "ing"?

[Star Wolf]

I liked it. I haven't read the books so I don't know how it would have been different if Tyler Perry or The Rock played Jack Reacher, except for making Detective Emerson look even smaller.

[Captain Craig]

This was one of the last few movies I saw to close out 2012 and I went in not knowing anything about the character. Had to read somewhere that this is based on a book series. Didn't look or hear by accident but is this movie based on one of he books?

I didn't vote in the poll cause it's hard to be yes/no/maybe about a character you've never heard of before.

I didn't go in with any expectations. Was it going to be an action film, a drama, a thriller or some hybrid. I came out thinking it was a bit like Taken, in that Reacher is a fluid ass kicker who knows his way around situations and Sherlock Holmes in that he's this wiz bang ace of a detective who draws the right conclusion from a seemingly indiscernible cacophony of evidence. I did think they should've somehow circled back to the company that had hired out the killers but we'd have needed to be introduced to them already. Maybe a headline then? It seems the real thrust was proving that the framed sniper Barr was innocent, when Reacher was initially sure he was guilty. Once that was resolved the details concerning the larger conspiracy are just assumed to fall into the necessary pockets of justice.

I'd be interested in more Jack Reacher.

[ManOnTheWave]

I did not vote as I had no real notions of the character, and never read the books. I saw it because Django Unchained was sold out.

I found it to be a surprisingly good movie. Reviews that describe it as retro are on the mark. It really feels like an early 90s thriller and less like a giant 'splosians shoot 'em up. There are aspects of the script (mostly the way Reacher fights and they way other characters react to Reacher) that would probably make slightly more sense if the character were played by someone larger than Cruise, but he pulls it off if you're willing to put your brain on the shelf for a couple of hours. The biggest WTF is the casting of Werner Herzog. I'm not complaining at all, but that was out of left field.

I'd gladly go see another Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher movie.

[Captaindemotion]

Captain Craig wrote:

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Didn't look or hear by accident but is this movie based on one of he books?

It's based on a book called One Shot.

[Captaindemotion]

I went to see the movie last night, as the wife and munchkins were visiting her mum and I was at a loose end. I was tempted to see The Life of Pi, the book of which is my favourite novel but I figured I might stil llpersuade the wife to go see it, but not Reacher, so Reacher it was.

It was a solid, slightly old-fashioned thriller. You could imagine it being made in the 1970s with Clint or McQueen in the lead. It's a somewhat surprisingly down-to-earth choice for Tom, when compared to event movies like the Mission Impossible series, if he's intending it to be a franchise. But I did enjoy it. Good solid cast, nicely directed by McQuarrie, with Child's reliable plotting providing a good structure.

Herzog was wonderful as The Zek, really how I imagined him in the book though I would like to have seen more of him. Rosamund Pike's cleavage deserves a mention and supporting role of its own - it was difficult to concentrate every time her magnficent chest came into view (legs were pretty good too).

As for Cruise as Reacher, well, I won't be picturing him when I read the books, but he gave it his best (One) Shot. He did well, even if some of the more Reacher-ish lines weren't entirely convincing coming from him. He's always watchable and was no different here. I didn't particularly care for the scene where Reacher put down his gun to fight Jai Courtney hand-to-hand - the 'real' Reacher would just have shot him. It looked like they were trying to recreate the Gibson/Busey showdown from Lethal Weapon, with the rain and what not. And the ending seemed a bit rushed. But all in all, a good enough movie.

Probably one for DVD if you're not a fan of the novels or the Cruiser. I'd give it a 7/10.

[Captain Craig]

I was at Target last night and they had 4 slots for Reacher books, One Shot was one of them and it was gone. I almost got the one they had, Killing Floor as it's cover states it's the first book in the series. I know it's the first book but is the best starting point? Is One Shot? Since the movie is the basis I kinda feel like if I'm going to start with one that's a good one. Any Reacher fans got a better 1st book suggestion than starting at the beginning?