Jack Reacher: Never Go Back - Movie Review
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
The hero from Lee Child's series of novels is back - well, the Tom Cruise version of the hero. He may be a 6-foot-5 blond muscle-man in the books, but Cruise weathered the storm with the unusually smart first movie, and now he returns for a remarkably gritty action thriller that feels like the antithesis of his Mission: Impossible movies. This is an ageing hero who gets hurt and recognises the laws of gravity.
As he roams around America helping strangers, Jack (Tom Cruise) keeps in touch with Susan (Cobie Smulders), who took his old job as commanding officer of a military police base. But just as he decides to drop in to meet her, she's arrested on trumped-up charges. And he is also promptly framed for murder and locked up. All of this happens just as he discovers that 15-year-old Samantha (Danika Yarosh) is his daughter. So Jack and Susan break out of prison and take Sam along as they try to sort out why they are suddenly on the wrong side of the law. Everything seems to trace back to a shady private contractor (Robert Knepper) who has sent a ruthless killer (Patrick Heusinger) to stop them.
In normal action blockbusters, this kind of plot would play out with massive explosions, physics-defying car chases and superhuman characters who take a hit and keep on going. But director Edward Zwick (who directed Cruise in The Last Samurai) takes a much more thoughtful, realistic approach that sometimes makes the film feel like it's moving in slow motion by comparison. Cruise is decidedly mortal in this role, needing to take a moment to recover after every punch. Since he's not invincible, Jack is far more engaging as a character, especially as he grapples with issues surrounding unexpected fatherhood. He also strikes just the right balance of flirtatious camaraderie with Smulders' Susan, never tipping over into a corny action-movie romance.
This is a remarkably intimate thriller, finely focussed on the journey of a man who has received some new information that redefines his identity at the same time as he has to fight to clear his name. It's unusually tight and gritty, the kind of movie that doesn't really need a massive Imax screen to convey its urgency. At the same time, it's so subtle and realistic that it might feel a bit dull by today's overblown standards. So while it's not terribly exciting, it actually leaves the audience feeling more satisfied, simply because it gives us something to chew on.
Watch the trailer for Jack Reacher: Never Going Back:
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Facts and Figures
Year: 2016
Genre: Thriller
Run time: 118 mins
In Theaters: Friday 21st October 2016
Budget: $68M
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Production compaines: Paramount Pictures, Skydance Productions, TC Productions
Reviews
Contactmusic.com: 3.5 / 5
Cast & Crew
Director: Edward Zwick
Producer: Tom Cruise, Christopher McQuarrie, Don Granger
Screenwriter: Richard Wenk, Edward Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz
Starring: Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher, Cobie Smulders as Susan Turner, Danika Yarosh as The Hunter, Holt McCallany as Prudhomme, Austin Hébert as Colonel Moorcroft, Robert Catrini as General Harkness, Robert Knepper as Prud'homme´s wife
Also starring: Christopher McQuarrie, Richard Wenk, Edward Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz