Jack Reacher: Movie Review

As a film, "Jack Reacher" is supremely an entertaining one. No one can take away that the fast-talking (and a smooth one at that) Jack Reacher and the endless action sequences and mayhem makes the film scream fun but as a mystery-thriller, much is left to be desired. Ironically, it's Achilles' heel is Jack Reacher himself. The character has a certain "intuition" to know and expect everything that will happen two or three steps ahead - a trait more superhero than just being absolutely good at what he does. It's this that is most jarring for us on what is already a good film.

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a man drives a van up floors of a parking garage across the PNC Park. After paying for parking, he readies a sniper rifle, takes aim and appears to kill five random people around the stadium and flees in his van. The police, headed by Detective Emerson (David Oyelowo), quickly discover the coin used to pay for parking and finds the fingerprint of James Barr (Joseph Sikora), a former U.S. Army sniper. When they raid his house, they find equipment for making bullets, the rifle in question, the same van used in the shooting and Barr himself. During his interrogation and before his coma, Barr asks for Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) - an outstanding military man who has disappeared and hasn't been heard of in two years. As luck would have it, Reacher arrives but soon finds things off with Barr's circumstances - things that make him believe Barr may have been set-up. He decides that he should investigate further with the help of the District Attorney's daughter, Helen (Rosamund Pike).

"Jack Reacher" is the perfect film is you want to sit back and be entertained from start to finish. It has all the works - a highly-interesting plot, mysterious characters that keep the interest extremely high, a guessing game of who's who, stupendously awesome action scenes and great acting and chemistry by the leads Tom Cruise and Rosamund Pike. So what's holding it up from greatness? It's actually how they presented the main guy Jack Reacher. He turns out to be an omniscient kind of guy - knowing everything all the time. Jack knows who the bad guys are, knows who will fight him and back out, knows the minutest of clues and definitely knows how to connect the dots to solve the whole thing. It's entertaining at some level but feels mostly weird. It is just frustrating to know that the whole mystery thriller aspect was shot out the door with their decision to spoon-feed everything and made the film feel more outlandish than real.

Rating: 4 reels

Why you should watch it:
- action scenes are awesome
- the plot and pacing make this extremely entertaining

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- the Jack Reacher character is outlandish with his omniscient nature