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252 reviews in total

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263 out of 362 people found the following review useful:
JACK REACHER: Action movie-making done right!, 12 December 2012

Author: Jack_LesCamela from Hollywood, CA

Saw JACK REACHER on Monday night at an advance screening. Here's some of my thoughts. There are no spoilers.

First off, I'd say I agree with the general critical reception: 4/5 stars. To me that means it's a solid movie that delivers at the high end of its genre. JACK REACHER isn't trying to be anything revolutionary, it's more the kind of action thriller audiences haven't seen for a while.

This isn't MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE or even James Bond. Writer/director Christopher McQuarrie takes his inspiration from action movies of the late 60s/early 70s like DIRTY HARRY (which has been name checked in a couple reviews already), BULLITT (for the car chase); and maybe another Don Siegel movie, CHARLEY VARRICK. The excitement here doesn't come from over the top stunts or huge explosions. Like the action movies just referenced, you thrill to watching a strongly defined protagonist outsmart, outfight and outmaneuver the bad guys.

Which brings me to the character of Jack Reacher and the casting of Tom Cruise. In the series of novels by Lee Child this movie is based on, Jack Reacher is an ex-MP detective. After a lifetime spent on military bases overseas, he lives as a drifter in the United States who adheres to a life of zero commitments: No house, no job, no car, no possessions, no family. Oh, and he stands 6'5" and weighs 250 lbs.

Clearly Tom Cruise doesn't match that physical description. What makes Reacher such a great character in Child's books though has far less to do with his exterior than it does with his intellect. If you've read the series as I have, it's a little strange at first. As the film played out however, I got more relaxed and more into it. This was definitely a movie about Lee Child's hero Jack Reacher, physical differences be damned.

Would I have preferred an unknown actor closer to Child's description to play Reacher on screen? Yes, of course. But I could say that about virtually any character, and often do. I generally want unknowns for everything.

Which is where Cruise's casting comes in handy a bit. Because his casting sort of guarantees a certain amount of box office, it means the filmmakers can take more chances. Like crafting an action movie that's longer on character and occasional brutal violence and short on mindless action and impossible nonsense.

JACK REACHER was a very satisfying action thriller for me. I felt it captured what I love about Lee Child's thrillers and Jack Reacher in particular. I'd definitely recommend it, and I'm going to see it in the theater again. That's for damn sure.

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77 out of 106 people found the following review useful:
Watch this film, 20 April 2013

Author: charlesdickins from Sweden

First of all i would like to ask how any of the other reviewers could possibly give this film 1 out of 10? They must have some deep rooted personal reasons for this i guess.

I nearly didn't watch this film for all of the negative reviews. I would have so missed out on something good.

The film was excellent! Great plot. Creepy bad guy and a reasonable amount of suspense. I have never read the Jack Reacher books, so cannot compare Cruise to the title character. I imagine that some people might have been disappointed at the lack of huge explosions and transforming robots etc etc, but this was a fine old school action thriller with many new tricks which i haven't seen before (check the buss stop scene. Classic!). I loved the pacing and the great interaction between players. Sure, some of the one liners seemed a tad forced, but they were not so common. Well done Cruise again.

Do yourselves a favour. Ignore the negative reviewers and give this a go.

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115 out of 212 people found the following review useful:
Introducing a new icon of the action genre..., 29 December 2012

Author: sn939 from India

I'd never read any of the Lee Child 'Jack Reacher' novels so I went in with no particular expectations about the portrayal of this character. But this film can certainly live up to ANY expectations thriller fans might have had of it, in my opinion!

Having seen Tom Cruise as the flamboyant, charming and somewhat Boy Scout-ish Ethan Hunt in the past, its refreshing to see him as someone almost as ruthless and taciturn as Jason Bourne or Daniel Craig's rendition of James Bond. Jack Reacher's appeal doesn't lie in the fact that he's a 'larger than life' figure, or the world's biggest bada##...it lies in the fact that he's a normal, perfectly relatable and very realistic human being, albeit a trained and skilled soldier and detective.

Rosamund Pike does a great job as the lawyer, Helen-a far cry from glamorous 'Bond girls' (one of whom Pike herself has portrayed), and Lara Croft styled action heroines who normally populate the action film genre. Instead she's a three dimensional character with her own doubts, anxieties, convictions and flaws.

One of the great things about this movie is how, without wavering from its narrative, it does highlight several significant real-world issues; ranging from the political debates over gun control, to legal representation for terrorists, to the politics surrounding the actions of military personnel overseas, to the corrupt political-industrial nexus...without necessarily taking sides or trying to come across as being preachy of moralistic.

To sum it up, Jack Reacher is virtually a 'slice of life' piece...albeit, a very dark and grimy slice of life.

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69 out of 122 people found the following review useful:
Chix Chat on Film Review: Reacher is the Man!, 21 December 2012

Author: Emma Dinkins (emmadinkins@chixchatonfilm.com) from Texas, United States

Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) is the tale of a very astute ex-military policeman. The army training came in quite handy as he digs into the evidence of a heinous crime that turns out to be not at all what it seems to be on the surface. I was surprised at how funny the dialogue in this film was, it is definitely not a comedy, but the sarcastic and comedic one-liners kept coming, even in situations that were completely devoid of a humorous setting there was some very amusing conversation. There was even a scene in which Reacher is attacked in a bathroom that had me cracking up at the bumbling bad guys. The comedy was heightened even further with the old codger Cash (Robert Duvall). Mr. Duvall always delivers a convincing performance, same here. As with any film that features Mr. Cruise the expectation is that it will be fast paced and very entertaining, same here. The only thing missing was his trademark sprint to or after something or anything. I've just come to expect to see him running, really running but we are getting older. The trailer is the only kind that I like, the ones that do not give away the whole movie. It shows that Reacher is bad a$$ without playing out every aspect of the story. David Oyelowo (Emerson) is one to watch, he is building an impressive resume and it is easy to see why because whenever he portrays a character he is that character. When he played a pilot in Red Tails, I totally believed he could fly a plane. When he was the head of a company experimenting on Apes, I was again thoroughly convinced and I believed every aspect of his being a police detective. One of the best car chase scenes that I've seen lately was in this film. There were so many attributes of this film that I liked, including the sexual tension between Reacher and Helen Ronin (Rosamund Pike) that I will just sum it up by saying. Everything just seemed to be genuine and authentic, even though I know that the fights are staged they looked logistically correct, but Steven Segal did come to mind. I liked that the film had a legitimate beginning and end, even if there are subsequent Jack Reacher tales to follow, there was no gaping wide open door of a final scene leaving the audience wondering 'What's up with that?!?'. But I do hope there are sequels, at least one. I give it a green light

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94 out of 176 people found the following review useful:
I would have been more entertained sitting in the car watching them clear the snow., 26 December 2012

Author: josh-allee from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Don't see this movie, seriously it's awful. Definitely one of the worst 5 movies ever made. So here's the plot line: Guy gets framed for murder, star of the movie shows up and kills the people who really did it. That's it. There is no suspense whatsoever in this movie, every "twist" and "turn" can be seen 100 miles away, absolutely nothing unpredictable happens. The dialog is painfully cheesy and pre-adolescent. Aside from having a razor thin plot line, which is entirely spelled out in the first 10 minutes of the movie, the dialog is also painfully awful. About half of this movie seemed to be Tom Cruise having flashbacks of the killing (which he didn't commit or witness which makes it all the weirder). The scene where he gets hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat and barely falls down is hilarious, especially when the two attackers (armed with a crowbar and baseball bat) try to fit through the bathroom door at the same time and get stuck before being thwarted by the bathtub in their attempts to hit Tom Cruise (who's head stays above the top of the tub the entire time). Of course there was the obligatory car chase scene where the cops who were right behind him all of a sudden lose him completely just before the suddenly catch back up to him. Not to mention the hilarity of the part where he leaves his car in drive, steps out, and walks over to a group of onlookers and pretends to be one of them. Then there is the scene where he's driving carelessly backwards using only the rear-view camera to guide him while he reclines to avoid being shot, until one of the bad guys shoots out the camera and he immediately backs the car on top of a rock where he gets stuck (gee, I wonder who saw that coming). Then he must run around and hide behind rocks to avoid being shot. Interesting how they spent at least 30 minutes establishing that the sniper shooting at him is a super-duper-extra-excellent-A+ sniper who never-ever-not once in a million years misses, yet he can't seem to hit anything once he starts firing at Tom Cruise. This movie was so awful it made me want to see a different movie just to get the proverbial bad taste out of my mouth.

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34 out of 58 people found the following review useful:
Poor scrip, poor acting., 10 March 2013

Author: skthorp

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I cannot seriously believe my husband made me sit through the whole movie. We had plenty of giggles throughout but they were for all the wrong reasons. The script was so cheesy I almost thought it was a spoof comedy. Tom Cruise must be really desperate for work. It's as though the scriptwriter watched every bad movie ever made and combined all of the worst lines together with using every drama stereotype ever invented. I can only assume that Tom Cruise has roped in all of his scientology friends (yes, I left the capital 'S' off on purpose) to give this movie good reviews as it's the biggest pile of pants I've seen in a while. Comparable only to the likes of Troll Hunter and The Wolfman. Do yourself a favour and avoid watching this movie. Take up knitting or scrabble or anything. Whatever you do, it would be much better use of your time.

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43 out of 78 people found the following review useful:
Worst movie I've ever seen., 23 December 2012

Author: jnichols311 from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Spoiler alert! If you are dying to see Jack Reacher DO NOT READ THIS. Having said that, this is quite possibly the worst movie I have ever seen in my life! It's definitely top three. I would never have believed that movies this bad were still being produced and released into theaters. In fact, I've seen tons of straight to internet things that are a thousand times better than this movie. Jack Reacher wins the award for worst writing in any movie ever in the history of the universe, bar none. My daughter and I actually started laughing so hard and trying to stifle it so as not to irritate anyone else in the theater that I had a coughing spell and had to go outside to recover. Actual dialogue from movie: "I will drink your blood from my boot" and "I'm a homeless drifter! I have nothing to lose!" Full disclosure – my daughter and I both LOVE action movies! In fact we prefer them to almost anything else. And we definitely do not expect Shakespearean dialogue in such movies. As a rule, dialogue should be minimal and action should be plentiful. This movie was just abysmally bad! And I think part of the reason was they seemed to reverse that formula – way too much dialogue, all of which sucked, and just a little bit of action. The acting was also laughably horrible. The acting talent of the main female in the movie apparently consisted of wearing the same low cut tank top with different sweaters, opening her eyes really wide and not grasping any of the plot points of the movie until Tom Cruise engaged in a lengthy badly written speech to explain it to her. And let's not even get into the Eastern European stereotypical bad guy who CHEWED OFF HIS OWN FINGERS in a Siberian prison so the frostbite would not turn to gangrene and kill him. Not even joking. Now, if you are someone who appreciates a good belly laugh over horrendous writing and equally bad acting, then you should definitely gather a group of your friends and go have a good laugh. But don't go see this embarrassingly badly made piece of crap expecting an actual good movie

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69 out of 130 people found the following review useful:
An undeniably likable protagonist, even when he does morally ambiguous things., 20 December 2012

Author: GoneWithTheTwins from www.GoneWithTheTwins.com

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

While not entirely original, Jack Reacher is both a competent mystery movie and an exciting action film. In that order. Not much for blending its components, the first three quarters unfolds in an intriguing and serpentine manner, while the last portion focuses rather exclusively on explosive adventure. The whodunit gets left in the dust; but it's still an effective journey regardless of the unceremonious juxtaposition of genres, primarily thanks to leads Tom Cruise and Rosamund Pike. Many of the characters in the film fall squarely in the category of generic, but Cruise and Pike push past their less polished support (like the "crotchety old man with a heart of gold" and "disfigured evil villain" roles that expectedly pop up) to create worthwhile heroes that deliver a surprising amount of witty banter and clever deducing of miniscule signs.

After a considerable amount of evidence finds former military sniper James Mark Barr (Joseph Sikora) the prime suspect in a brutal killing spree of five innocent victims, he asks the district attorney to find the mysterious Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) to help prove his innocence. Instead, the elusive investigator arrives to make sure Barr pays for his crimes. When defense attorney Helen Rodin (Rosamund Pike) implores Reacher to examine the evidence more closely, the two begin uncovering a massive conspiracy and a trail of bodies leading to the real culprits. As they dig deeper, Helen and Jack become the targets of a dangerous gang of criminals who will stop at nothing to keep the truth from surfacing.

It starts with a particularly scary opening sequence, which in light of current events, along with editing and sound effects that bespeak frighteningly realistic atrocities, seems staggeringly morbid. Shortly thereafter, "Jack Reacher" is all about fun. Light-hearted adventure (thanks to an invincible hero), flirty repartee, and plenty of action movie clichés (not excluding crooked cops, an impressively unidealistic car chase, and nasty villains itching to be offed) are jam-packed into a smartly paced puzzlement that quickly devolves into a sensationally caricatural revenge fantasy. While it's not a thinker, it certainly is nonstop guilty pleasure entertainment.

A vestige of creativity pokes through the occasional framing of poses and consternated expressions by a sharply focused camera, the ampleness of circumstantial evidence to fuel a conspiracy theory, and the "trust no one" theme of lone wolf substantiating. This is witnessed chiefly in the dialogue-free apprehension of the suspect (directly after the opening scene) and in the repetitive way Reacher is shown to be a formidable opponent to all things injurious. A few scenes are dedicated entirely to demonstrating just how seasoned he is at fighting crime (or to show his tangible machismo) – and later, a few more similar moments are thrown in just to reaffirm that notion. Each time this is done, the film becomes more enjoyable, right along with a role catered specifically for Cruise.

He's an undeniably likable protagonist, even when he does morally ambiguous things. Calm, collected, smug, confident, lucky, smarter than the cops, and always calculating, this new Ethan Hunt-like character is even better than the "Mission: Impossible" daredevil Cruise has been embodying over the course of fifteen years; he's minutely more believable and his humorous quips are continually amusing. Nearly every exchange of dialogue (and combat stunt) is honeycombed with comedic verbiage or executed with an unmistakable wink, even when (perhaps especially so) it's an icy threat to antagonists. Once again, Tom Cruise has crafted a charismatic character audiences won't be able to get enough of.

- The Massie Twins (GoneWithTheTwins.com)

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114 out of 220 people found the following review useful:
A real let down for fans, 4 January 2013

Author: jtindahouse from Nelson, New Zealand

'One Shot' is my favourite book. Not my favourite Jack Reacher book. My favourite book. So when I heard they were not only going to be making a Reacher film, but making 'One Shot', I was ecstatic. Then I heard who would be playing Reacher and like 99.9% of fans I thought to myself, "this must be an April Fool's joke. A 5'7" skinny guy playing the hulking 250 pound, 6'5" Jack Reacher? This can't be happening." Sadly it was. And then the trailer came out and my worst fears were confirmed. Cruise was not being buffed up by any type of body suit, he wasn't being made to look taller with trick photography and he wasn't putting on the raspy 'animal-like' voice I always imagined Reacher to have.

Lee Child once made a great analogy to Jack Reacher. He said "does anyone remember the story lines in the Dirty Harry Movies? Not a chance. But they sure as hell remember the character." The Reacher books are about a single thing, and that is Jack Reacher. Don't get me the wrong, the stories in 90% of the books released so far are masterpieces and could easily be made into great films. But they still remain a vehicle for which Jack Reacher can thrive in. And the producers proved that they realised this (albeit very late in the piece) by renaming the movie 'Jack Reacher'. A little in-your-face for my liking, but I could see why it was necessary so I didn't hold it against them. However I did reserve my right to hold Tom Cruise's casting against them. And I was right to. Did Tom Cruise pull off the great character of Jack Reacher? Not in your life.

Cruise was cast badly, and then went on to play the role even worse. Not a great combination if you're an actor. Heath Ledger took the opposite route in his role as The Joker in Christopher Nolan's 2008 masterpiece "The Dark Knight". He was hugely criticised for being completely wrong for the part when he was cast and we all know how that turned out. Cruise unfortunately did not rise to the challenge in the same way.

For starters, I'm reasonably confident he was the shortest person in the film. Not one effort was made to make him look the least bit impressive stature wise. His haircut was ridiculous. He looked like a guy who goes to the hair salon twice a week for touch-ups. In fact Jai Courtney in the role of the Charlie had what I always imagined to be the perfect haircut for Reacher. Perhaps he would've been better placed in the role? Cruise's shoulders were not broad enough. At one stage a character asks "I'm looking for a guy who could kill a man with one punch?" To which he is directed straight to Reacher. Get real. Rosamund Pike was probably more likely to kill someone that way than Cruise. Cruise did not alter his voice one bit for the movie. This was a huge disappointment for me. I had really hoped he would do something like what Christian Bale did when he was in the Batman suit, only not quite to the same degree, but for the whole movie. Cruise sounded almost feminine performing some of the lines. Lastly, he kept bloody smiling (or smirking, whatever you want to call it). I was OK with him cracking the odd joke here and there, because Reacher can be a bit of a smart-ass, but he didn't have to look so damn proud of himself every time he did it. Reacher's an animal, 24-7, he (very) rarely smiles and he takes life very seriously.

The script was solid, it stayed pretty faithful to the book. I found the jokes and one-liners a little too frequent for my liking and took away from what should have been a dark atmosphere. Unfortunately, Reacher was never really challenged physically. Sure, everyone he fought was bigger than him, but that's only because Cruise is so short. Never once did I think to myself 'how's Reacher possibly going to take down this guy?" Which always makes for the best fight scenes. One part of the script I did not like at all, again regarding the 'bad guys', was when two of them, whilst trying to attack Reacher, were practically fighting each other even harder. And just because they wanted to get through the door first? I felt like I was watching 'Home Alone' or something. I assume they were going for comedic value but it just went far too far for my liking.

The rest of the cast were solid at best, in fact I found Rosamund Pike well below average in her performance, but I wasn't too bothered by this because they were the epitome of a support cast. They weren't who people came to see. People came to see Cruise and he let them down. The interesting thing is that the movie isn't being panned across the board, which is testament to how good the story is. It's a great story and could easily have been done without Reacher, which is basically what has happened for people who haven't read the books. They don't have those to compare the character to and so they leave the theater quite happily. And that's great for them. But for the rest of us they have ruined a great character. I hope when I read future books I can still picture the character the same way I always have. Sadly, I fear I may struggle.

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17 out of 27 people found the following review useful:
Jack Reacher....... just good fun, 20 April 2013

Author: dgefroh from United States

Having never read any Lee Childs novels regarding Jack Reacher, I went into this one with somewhat limited knowledge on who Jack Reacher is and what his claim to fame is. So like many, I read where the "serious" fans were disappointed that Tom Cruise was picked to portray this iconic hero. To them I say, so what, did you watch this movie? In truth Tom Cruise is very good in this role, the movie is fast paced and action packed, the writing is cleaver and spot on, so to those who would continue to pan this movie I say lighten up and relax. This was a very good movie, Tom Cruise was good in the lead role, the several one-liners were very cleaver and kept a sense of humor in a plot with plenty of violence and too close for comfort realism. This movie was good, it was entertaining, well acted, and should be viewed and enjoyed by all who watch it.

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