'Jack Reacher'

Christopher McQuarrie is mostly known for his work on The Usual Suspects and his directorial début, the hugely underestimated The Way of the Gun, so it was with an open mind ( and despite Tom Cruise) that I went to see Jack Reacher.

The opening sequence is one of the most suspenseful seen in cinema since, well The Usual Suspects, well crafted, shot in that subdued grey-colour scheme giving you that tingling hopeful sensation that you might just see that unexpected cinematic gem you never thought of looking for in this very film. Unfortunately, these hopes are soon bashed, but first things first. JR then opens with a sniper in a garage shooting five seemingly random people. The patient handling of the camera has you gripping your seat in anticipation and really conveys that horrible principle of completely random and thus absurd selection. It's knowledge McQuarrie plays with in this sequence, the horrible spectatorial knowledge that people are going to die and the terrible observation of the unknowing soon-to-be-dead. The mise-en-scene is more terrifying for its apparent simplicity and understatement, there is no blood to be seen, no brains splashed on the pavement and the screams remain muffled as if heard from a great distance, maybe a garage on the other side of the river, in which a sniper is taking his terrible pick.

On investigating the crime scene, Officer Emerson finds a fingerprint on a coin in the parking meter and a bullet overlooked by the rest of the police. A culprit is soon found in Iraq veteran Barr. The latter refuses to talk only advising the investigators to get Reacher. This becomes a problem as Reacher is the proverbial ghost, an ex-military who just vanished off the face of the earth, no phone number, no address, no credit card, just a social security number and the occasional money withdrawal, hey, dental is important ! Good thing then, that in exactly the moment they talk about him, Reacher walks through the door. I think that was meant to be humorous, but only came across as anti-climactic and slightly, erm, dumb. The rest of the film follows the Quincy principle: You know: Quincy deduces something the others don't believe, because, plainly they're too stupid, so he spends his time being admired by the ladies and patiently collecting evidence for what he long knows. All this is not a bad thing in itself, we've all seen films with less to offer plot-wise and enjoyed them, but here, things never quite take off. There's a veil that cannot be lifted, it seems, a shallowness which is never broken even if at times the film offers glimpses of McQuarries' talent.

Even Tom Cruise is, how shall I put this, alright? He does look a bit squashed though. Physique aside, he does seem to do justice to the Reacher character from Lee Child's novel series (I never read one) at least in terms of cockiness and the looming larger than life part. Fans of the cheesy one-liner will have a field day with this one, however, any form of witticism goes completely amiss in JR, as Cruise hasn't got the self-deprecating smirk of a Bruce Willis, neither are the lines of the excessive stupidity resulting in a hilarious action-thriller self-reflexivity of, oh, I dunno, a Schwarzenegger film. One line cannot be faulted however and that is: 'I mean to beat you to death and drink your blood from a boot.' It was as if the eighties came back and gave one big, comforting hug!

Don't get me wrong, I'm no big fan of the vigilante self-serving message the film conveys, but then, action thrillers are generally not designed for the politically sensible! So enough said about the issue of killing guys because the system might let them go! At least McQuarrie is carrying on the American cinematic tradition of regarding the law as intrinsically corrupt and against the little man!

Rosamund Pike plays Helen Rodin, daughter of the DA and smart idealistic defense lawyer of Barr. She spends her screen-time with her arms pressed together to emphasize a cleavage one has not seen on her before! There is no chemistry whatsoever between her and Cruise which is a good thing as I always find female interest in Cruise to be the scariest part of the fiction! Pike 's daddy issues seem to be the sole motivations of her career. All in all, she seems to be a projection surface upon which Cruise can alternately bounce ideas or polish his male ego. In one of the funniest scenes, though unintentionally so, Pike cannot concentrate as Cruise walks around with his bare torso! To be fair, I had a hard time looking away, however more in the I-shouldn't-but-cannot-stop-looking-at-the-accident kind of way. The strangely off angle of the shot with Pike centre-stage and Cruise's chest just sticking in the frame is just too weird. It's as if Cruise's nipples just popped in to say 'Hi'. Anyway, enough bare chested nonsense, back to Pikes' performance and my lament: Why, oh, why, did she ever accept this role? Pike is a good actress, on the way to being great, but even she cannot save this shallow character and Cruise-admiring dialogue from the most simplified form of misanthropy. In the end, most of the time, she resembles a Playboy version of a lawyer. This is female empowerment as imagined by Hollywood: Yes, she's in heels, but only because she chooses to as an educated adult and her salivation whenever Cruise enters the frame is one of empowerment. Yes, right!

My near-obsession with Richard Jenkins is well documented, but even he cannot weasel his way out of poor character conception. Jenkins' acting relies mainly on his world-weary, droopy-eyed slouching, but here it constantly seems as if Jenkins was really just sad and depressed about the quality of the lines he has to offer. Richard Jenkins cannot and should not under any circumstances be used as cannon fodder. That's what we got Donald Sutherland for!!!

The reason why JR is not a complete failure is two-fold: Werner Herzog and Robert Duvall! When coming upon Herzog's name in the opening credits, it felt as if the world had shifted out of place, kind of like what you imagine Middle Earth must have felt like when Sauron took over the show! But then, we have come to expect the unexpected from Herzog. Herzog's character Zec is the stuff of European medieval fairy tales. Why he is blind on one eye is never explained, however, it helps create a character who is vividly nightmarish, ironically not so far off a Kinski performance. Maybe Herzog picked up a few things on the set of Aguirre! When he gnarls: I spent my first winter as a prisoner in Siberia wearing a dead man's coat. I chewed these fingers off before the frostbite could turn to gangrene – one cannot help but salute him. Werner, you the man!

The other performance gem comes in the form of Duvall's character as gun-nut Cash, one of the craziest and most likeable characters on screen. Duvall plays Cash with exactly the right kind of devil-may-care crazy-son-of-a-bitch attitude that the genre needs and it's only when either Duvall or Herzog appear that the general stagnancy of the film is broken and the action really comes to life. Sadly, their screen-time is too limited for those two to save the film.

McQuirre is clearly fascinated with pulp fiction, from Hammett and Chandler to Higgins and most recently Child- their influences are felt. The protagonist, type lone vigilante gun-man, is as noir as they come. The world-weariness and jaded sense of justice are as old as cinema itself. The double-crossings, set-ups and innocence corrupted, the whole thematic shenanigans - all present. So, by definition, this should be one amazing two-hour ride. Except, it never takes off. Cruise cannot pull Reacher off, Pike remains stale and doll-like, the action drags on, never reaching the point of explicitly boring but never far off. Duvall and Herzog manage to infuse some life into this over-reaching (Yep, I went there!), but, unfortunately, Jack Reacher remains one of those films you can watch hungover on a Sunday afternoon with a box of greasy take-away and that hair-of-a-dog pint. This vehicle for Cruise's ego does, however, not warrant an eight-quid ticket. Money better invested in buying a Richard Jenkins poster to put over your bed...just a suggestion!