Jack Reacher

Starts out strong but becomes more and more silly as the running time goes by.

A sniper decides to take down five people in the middle of a city. After being quickly apprehended, the suspect asks for the ghost, ex-military police officer Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) . This is a pretty odd move considering Reacher actually is predisposed to leaving said sniper to his guilt, but is eventually persuaded by the sniper's somewhat dumb defense attorney (Rosamund Pike) to help her investigate the case impartially. Why does he choose to help?

*sarcastic* No idea at all.

This flick starts out super strong for me. I especially like that it is very long before a single word is even uttered, and the way they film their panning shots makes for interesting viewing. It's also very entertaining to watch Reacher use his Sherlock skills and close quarter combat throughout the piece, yet still have a number of humorous pieces throughout a supposedly serious movie. There's also little computer generated stuff here, relying on stunt drivers and people which makes it pretty grounded: thumbs up for me there.

Unfortunately the great start is undone somewhat by the really dumb bad guys. I can forgive the lower level fools for screwing up but when the big bad "boogeyman" (who is actually quite a cripple when you think about it) starts screwing up big time by being too jumpy it lessens the tension somewhat. Off the top of my head I could think of a few alternatives he could have done to prevent his whole ploy falling like a house of cards but nope - he's a moron. I guess they couldn't think of any other way to fit the action pieces in there and to let Reacher actually win. Anywho, it's a good enough film to watch once - but not really any more than that. I give Jack Reacher two and a half bullets out of five.