I mean to beat you to death, and drink your blood from a boot.

Jack Reacher

Blessed with one of the worst movie posters in recent memory (a Photoshop job that makes Cruise look like one of those giant bobbleheads; not the one heading up this review, mercifully) and a blandest of the bland title, this turns out to be a highly enjoyable back-to-basics thriller. Sophomore director Christopher McQuarrie (also adapting Lee Childs’ novel One Shot) brings a welcome visceral quality to the action, making a fairly basic detective plot seem like a breath of fresh air when the competition tends to be CGI’d up to the eyeballs.

Ex-military policeman, now Littlest Hobo-like drifter, Jack Reacher arrives in Pittsburgh (or, at least, that’s where it was filmed) to investigate a lone gunman shooting spree. The alleged shooter is someone he investigated years ago, so Jack is surprised to conclude that the man is innocent and that these were not just random killings. He teams up with a defence lawyer (Rosamund Pike) and at every turn reveals his highly-honed deductive skills, as well as engaging in frequent bouts of fisticuffs.

Part of the appeal is how traditional the storyline is, in an age of plot construction that is more about tying set pieces together than turning in a properly crafted script. No doubt due to its pulpy source material., this has a proper mystery to be solved before it turns its attention to Jack bringing justice. And McQuarrie knows his structure such that, overlong though it is, you’re kept involved throughout. The less successful aspects never really dent enjoyment, and one suspects they were present in the source material. The inevitable revelation of a bad guy you thought was a good guy has insufficient motivation, so it seems like an enormous convenience. Elsewhere, the myth-making dialogue concerning Reacher’s skills and philosophy crosses the boundary from mildly cheesy into out-and-out laughable.

But the director brings a sure eye to the action and has a strong sense of pacing. When Jack has a fight it’s satisfying not just because of the classic scenario of the outnumbered protagonist outmatching his opponents but because McQuarrie ensures the framing and cutting are clean and crisp. There’s a car chase where the camera repeatedly pulls up against the front end of Reacher’s car, making the sequence exhilaratingly immediate and physical; it’s not a new technique, but the employment of it feels vital.

Cruise has, of course, been much criticised for taking on the role of Reacher, as he bears no resemblance to the character in the books. I can’t call him on that, not having read any of them. For much of the time his performance wouldn’t be out of place in the average non-Jack Reacher Cruise movie, except that his dialogue is noticeably sharper and less self-congratulatory (it’s others who worship Reacher’s superheroics). The main difference is that there’s no watering down of the character’s moral code, which sees him behaving in a manner close to a Charles Bronson-type than your traditional Cruise hero.

The supporting cast include a couple of stand-out turns. Wernor Herzog, made up with a glassy contact lens and missing digits, is a believable representation of evil incarnate. His character’s name (the Zec) sounds like something out of kid’s cartoon, however. Jai Courtney, soon to be seen as John McClane’s son, steals the film from Cruise whenever he appears. It’s a younger, more maliciously charismatic, role that reminds you that Hollywood’s premier Scientologist is getting on a bit. Pike’s fine but Richard Jenkins and David Oyelowo are wasted in underwritten parts.

It looks like a Jack Reacher follow-up hinges on the international territories where the film is yet to open. But if it’s that touch-and-go I wouldn’t bet on it. A shame, as there’s potential here for a couple more (as long as the plots continue to be involving; character development clearly isn’t the key to Lee Childs’ series). Still, if nothing else it has provided Christopher McQuarrie with a strong calling for his next stint behind the megaphone (Mission: Impossible 5 has been rumoured).

***1/2

Comments

She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

Rejoice! The broken are the more evolved. Rejoice.

Split (2016)
(SPOILERS) M Night Shyamalan went from the toast of twist-based filmmaking to a one-trick pony to the object of abject ridicule in the space of only a couple of pictures: quite a feat. Along the way, I’ve managed to miss several of his pictures, including his last, The Visit, regarded as something of a re-locating of his footing in the low budget horror arena. Split continues that genre readjustment, another Blumhouse production, one that also manages to bridge the gap with the fare that made him famous. But it’s a thematically uneasy film, marrying shlock and serious subject matter in ways that don’t always quite gel.

Shyamalan has seized on a horror staple – nubile teenage girls in peril, prey to a psychotic antagonist – and, no doubt with the best intentions, attempted to warp it. But, in so doing, he has dragged in themes and threads from other, more meritable fare, with the consequence that, in the end, the conflicting positions rather subvert his attempts at subversion…

My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

Must the duck be here?

The Favourite (2018)
(SPOILERS) In my review of The Killing of a Sacred Deer, I suggested The Favourite might be a Yorgos Lanthimos movie for those who don’t like Yorgos Lanthimos movies. At least, that’s what I’d heard. And certainly, it’s more accessible than either of his previous pictures, the first two thirds resembling a kind of Carry On Up the Greenaway, but despite these broader, more slapstick elements and abundant caustic humour, there’s a prevailing detachment on the part of the director, a distancing oversight that rather suggests he doesn’t feel very much for his subjects, no matter how much they emote, suffer or connive. Or pratfall.

Whoever comes, I'll kill them. I'll kill them all.

John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)
(SPOILERS) There’s no guessing he’s back. John Wick’s return is most definite and demonstrable, in a sequel that does what sequels ought in all the right ways, upping the ante while never losing sight of the ingredients that made the original so formidable. John Wick: Chapter 2 finds the minimalist, stripped-back vehicle and character of the first instalment furnished with an elaborate colour palette and even more idiosyncrasies around the fringes, rather like Mad Max in that sense, and director Chad Stahleski (this time without the collaboration of David Leitch, but to no discernible deficit) ensures the action is filled to overflowing, but with an even stronger narrative drive that makes the most of changes of gear, scenery and motivation.

The result is a giddily hilarious, edge-of-the-seat thrill ride (don’t believe The New York Times review: it is not “altogether more solemn” I can only guess Jeannette Catsoulis didn’t revisit the original in the interven…

I don’t think you will see President Pierce again.

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)
(SPOILERS) The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and other tall tales of the American frontier is the title of "the book" from which the Coen brothers' latest derives, and so announces itself as fiction up front as heavily as Fargo purported to be based on a true story. In the world of the portmanteau western – has there even been one before? – theme and content aren't really all that distinct from the more familiar horror collection, and as such, these six tales rely on sudden twists or reveals, most of them revolving around death. And inevitably with the anthology, some tall tales are stronger than other tall tales, the former dutifully taking up the slack.

Can you float through the air when you smell a delicious pie?

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
(SPOILERS) Ironically, given the source material, think I probably fell into the category of many who weren't overly disposed to give this big screen Spider-Man a go on the grounds that it was an animation. After all, if it wasn’t "good enough" for live-action, why should I give it my time? Not even Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's pedigree wholly persuaded me; they'd had their stumble of late, although admittedly in that live-action arena. As such, it was only the near-unanimous critics' approval that swayed me, suggesting I'd have been missing out. They – not always the most reliable arbiters of such populist fare, which made the vote of confidence all the more notable – were right. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is not only a first-rate Spider-Man movie, it's a fresh, playful and (perhaps) surprisingly heartfelt origins story.

I don’t know if what is happening is fair, but it’s the only thing I can think of that’s close to justice.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
(SPOILERS) I think I knew I wasn’t going to like The Killing of a Sacred Deer in the first five minutes. And that was without the unedifying sight of open-heart surgery that takes up the first four. Yorgos Lanthimos is something of a Marmite director, and my responses to this and his previous The Lobster (which I merely thought was “okay” after exhausting its thin premise) haven’t induced me to check out his earlier work. Of course, he has now come out with a film that, reputedly, even his naysayers will like, awards-darling The Favourite…

There's something wrong with the sky.

Hold the Dark (2018)
(SPOILERS) Hold the Dark, an adaptation of William Giraldi's 2014 novel, is big on atmosphere, as you'd expect from director Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin, Green Room) and actor-now-director (I Don’t Want to Live in This World Anymore) pal Macon Blair (furnishing the screenplay and appearing in one scene), but contrastingly low on satisfying resolutions. Being wilfully oblique can be a winner if you’re entirely sure what you're trying to achieve, but the effect here is rather that it’s "for the sake of it" than purposeful.

Never compare me to the mayor in Jaws! Never!

Ghostbusters (2016)
(SPOILERS) Paul Feig is a better director than Ivan Reitman, or at very least he’s savvy enough to gather technicians around him who make his films look good, but that hasn’t helped make his Ghostbusters remake (or reboot) a better movie than the original, and that’s even with the original not even being that great a movie in the first place.

Along which lines, I’d lay no claims to the 1984 movie being some kind of auteurist gem, but it does make some capital from the polarising forces of Aykroyd’s ultra-geekiness on the subject of spooks and Murray’s “I’m just here for the asides” irreverence. In contrast, Feig’s picture is all about treating the subject as he does any other genre, be it cop, or spy, or romcom. There’s no great affection, merely a reliably professional approach, one minded to ensure that a generous quota of gags (on-topic not required) can be pumped out via abundant improv sessions.

So there’s nothing terribly wrong with Ghostbusters, but aside from …

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog