Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
(2016)
(SPOILERS) It was probably inevitable that
Tom Cruise’s dedication to his declining “brand” meant Jack Reacher would renounce
his stone-cold, death-machine mantle almost as soon as he had found his
footing. But that doesn’t mean we have to like it. As other commentators have
noted, with nineteen novels to choose from, what were the chances Cruise would
pick the one that softens the character up, giving him a potential daughter and
(only ever potential) love interest to pick away at his concealed human side?
But then Cruise, amid his scientological
myopia, probably thought he was playing safe, to his strengths, despite Jack Reacher getting a sequel based on the
slenderest of threads (courtesy of post-theatrical income streams) and the
vocal outcry about the half-pint not being of suitable altitude to fill
Reacher’s heavyweight boots. He clearly felt he needed to steer the character further
off piste from the self-sufficient introvert, which is hardly likely to win him
acclaim from Reacher devotees. The first movie was based on One Shot, the ninth Reacher novel, while
this takes a flying leap into the eighteenth. But “character development” is
the sustenance of the deluded Hollywood star, so playing a stoic, inexpressive knight
errant over the course of a series of movies, from a guy who really, really
likes to flash that perfect grin, just wasn’t on the cards (you only need to
look as far as George Miller and Mad Max
to see where Cruise is fatally misguided).
It wouldn’t matter quite so much if there
was any real spark to the relationships, but the friction between Jack and
wayward teen Samantha (Danika Yarosh; I don’t know her career outside of this,
but if she isn’t in real life she does a remarkable job of playing a highly
irritating miscreant here – Reacher can count himself lucky he doesn’t turn out
to be pater familias), and with his military contact Turner (Cobie Smulders,
who does anything but, and is as entirely absent of personality as in everything
else I’ve seen her, which to be fair is pretty much Marvel movies). Smulder’s
been framed for murder, with a conveniently/
annoyingly tangential plotline regarding
Samantha’s possible parentage encouraging an “exploration” of Jack’s difficult
loner status (he’s like a Bruce Banner who doesn’t turn green).
For a reasonable stretch, Never Go Back is an effective-enough,
serviceable thriller, even given that director Edward Zwick, never that dynamic
or invested a director but big on his ineffectual and frequently
self-sabotaging Hollywood version of social conscience, doesn’t add much to the
proceedings. And, given the bang-up job Christopher McQuarrie did on the
original, positively detracts from it in places. There’s little here that
couldn’t have been replicated by a TV movie (which surely, after Never Go Back inevitably underwhelms at
the box office, will end up as the character’s natural home, minus one wee
Tommy boy), and while some of the action is serviceable (notably Jack
extracting himself and Turner from military custody, and a sequence on a plane
in which Jack proficiently deals with two assassins), others (a one-versus-four
fight in a New Orleans warehouse) lack the clear, precise cutting and staging McQuarrie
brought to the table.
The plot isn’t really much of a mystery,
but the screenplay (from Richard Wenk, Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz) is busy
enough that this doesn’t really matter until we alight in New Orleans. It’s at
this point that Never Goes Back curls
into a ball and admits defeat. The pace slackens, and the assembled clichés of
characters are confirmed as exactly and as unflatteringly thin as they are, co-mingling
with similarly unsatisfactory plot developments, ones that come from the plot
bible of idiots required to do idiot things in order to imperil themselves
(usually reserved for horror movie protagonists). Such that Samantha, who is so incredibly streetwise and a chip off
the old block (despite being not really) in her can-do skills, manages to be
stupid enough to repeatedly blunder into situations where she can be traced or
hunted down. This is TV movie writing, but TV movie writing of 20 years ago (or
more), complete with a snarling henchman (Patrick Heusinger, entirely one note,
making you long for the charisma of Jai Courtney in the original: Jai Bless)
whose entire motivation is to make Jack feel pain like he’s never felt before,
and other such twittery.
Also on hand is Robert Knepper as the
budget-driven B-baddie, who has so little screen time, Zwick and co probably
thought it pointless to try and replicate the surprise success of Werner Herzog
last time. Or maybe they were afraid any one with substance would overshadow
Tom? Knepper’s the former general in charge of a rogue private military outfit
(is there any other kind? I guess the operatives are just following through
with what they were taught in the regular army), the easy go-to of a studio
with an insufficient blank slate of bad guys these days (it’s them or Russians,
since who cares about offending Russians; on the contrary, it appears to be
actively encouraged!) As such, Zwick can rest assured his movie is vaguely
about something: opposed to the privatisation of the military, and by inference
the incremental corporatisation/capitalisation of all public services (one
might take this as a Democrat stance, but we know Hillary is in favour of all
those things and then some); after all, that $600bn+ per annum is money well
spent, isn’t it?
How is Tom faring, in his mid-50s and
attempting to look a decade younger? Well, he pulls it off, depending on how moisturised
he is and the un/flattering nature of Oliver Wood’s photography for the shot in
question (it varies); Cruise has a testing time ahead, as he doesn’t have a
good face for aging with character. He’ll just end up looking doughy.
Which is a by-the-by, but indicative that,
aside from some cool, no-shit-taken violence (it’s a little worrying, unless he
meant it in some kind of untranslatably ironic sense, that Child has “done a fair amount of headbutting. It’s an
awesome manoeuvre”; way to go, dude!),
there’s little that leaves an impression character-wise, certainly nothing (M:I at least gives him daredevil stunts
to perform) that would encourage understanding of why he’s seized on this as
only his second “franchise”; one can only assume it’s down to fear of
diminishing star status. We can be thankful at least that, when Jack threatens
to break Heusinger’s arms, legs and neck, he actually does exactly that, even if Zwick’s too wet to really get into it.
Cruise has a reteam with Doug Liman next
year for American Made (it’s always
iffy putting “America” in a title; Mena
may have been no more illuminating – it covers some of the same terrain as Narcos – but is far less generic) and The Mummy, which I’d be far more
intrigued by if an inexperienced writer-turned-director wasn’t calling the
shots. But who knows, maybe Cruise has him sussed; it worked out with McQuarrie
and then some. Zwick, though continues going his less-than-bold, ineffectual
way, dealing out forgettable features wherever he treads.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.