Movie Review: Jack Reacher

I’ll admit that the reason I finally watched Jack Reacher was that it was released in Blu-ray this past Tuesday. When it hit theaters back in December, I didn’t have the drive to see it until I found out that Jai Courtney (Spartacus: War of the Damned, Divergent) was in this film alongside Tom Cruise (Oblivion, Top Gun), by then it was already out of the theaters. Then I come to find out that Jack Reacher is an adaptation of Lee Child‘s novel One Shot. One Shot is the 9th book in Lee Child’s book series titled Jack Reacher. I haven’t read this series so my thoughts will reflected the movie itself. From looking at reviews of the book series online, its seems that the Jack Reacher series is popular and gets great reviews. Anyone that likes to read a good mystery thriller with tons of suspense should probably read the series by Lee Child.

Jack Reacher was mysterious and suspenseful. From the beginning of the movie when it opens with a man setting up a sniper rifle to take out bystanders from the parking garage across the Allegheny River from PNC Park you are immediately thrown into a suspenseful event. Why is this man there and killing these innocent people? Then the police are at the scene of the crime and find a fingerprint of the killer. Once the finger print is analyzed they have their suspect and it’s an open and shut case pretty much. So the suspect they go after is James Barr (Joseph Sikora) ex-military sniper. Barr is being interrogated and the one thing he does tell the police by jotting it down on a piece of notepad is “Get Jack Reacher”. Police are left wondering who the heck Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) is and why does their suspect want them to contact him. This gets the police looking up who Reacher is, they come to find out he is practically a ghost. Once a military police corps officer. The last 2 years Reacher hasn’t existed or pop up anywhere. So how does the police contact a man who doesn’t want to be found? Easy, Jack Reacher just drops in at the police station. Reacher saw on TV the headlines news about Barr and the killing spree and went straight to the police station. When Barr is taken to jail, he is brutally attacked and left in a coma. Jack meets the defense attorney Helen Rodin (Rosamund Pike) and she request that Jack become a lead investigator in the case for her. Jack agrees and begins his task at dissecting the crime committed by Barr.

Jack immediately starts to uncover things the police missed or covered up. This is a story where you can’t always believe the evidence before you. Jack Reacher is Tom Cruise at Tom Cruise level. The man never goes in half-ass, he takes his career and acting serious and gives us 110%. In Jack Reacher he might have kicked it up a notch since he was one of the producers of the film. The chemistry between Jack Reacher and defense attorney Helen Rodin was believable and they made a great duo. As I mentioned earlier in the review, I wanted to see Jai Courtney (Charlie) in this film and was pleased with his part and delivery as well. Jai looks great in this movie and was the ultimate villain. I can’t wait to see what Jai brings to the table in next spring’s Divergent release.

Great movie to check out if you haven’t yet. Guys will love it and I think the ladies will too just like I did. Why not, you get Tom Cruise for 2 hours on your TV screen.

If you want to check out Lee Child’s series visit his Amazon page HERE.