When I met Jack Bauer. Sorry, Reacher. – Miss Write

I just saw ‘Jack Reacher’ at the cinema and it’s made me blog on a Saturday evening. I don’t normally do film reviews (or blog on Saturday nights) as I don’t really think I’m qualified enough to comment. I just watch quite a few. Maybe that’s enough.

But I wouldn’t recommend you shell out for a ticket for this one. Screenplay writer and director Christopher McQuarrie didn’t pull it off like he did with ‘Valkyrie‘ and ‘The Tourist‘.

I was reluctant to watch it to start with; I admit, I may have gone in pre-judging the latest Tom Cruise offering. I’m not a fan of TC but my friend Grant seemed to be so, we scored 15% off the ticket, and I was bored, so I went along. Not a great premise for a successful cinema trip!

So, if you’re a reader, you may know that Reacher is the protagonist in the crime novels by Lee Child. Not Ian Rankin, as I thought, and I’ve read both Child and Lee, but that’s too embarrassing to elaborate on. However, I felt that Jack Reacher was trying too hard to be Jack Bauer, the renegade loose cannon, the sexy justice seeker and protector from ‘24‘. He failed miserably. 

I also managed to guess most of the film before it happened. This is unusual, as not only am I quite unobservant, but I also like to live in the moment with films and not try to second guess every twist and turn. I prefer it this way, taking the film at the speed it was intended and enjoying it as it unfolds, but this one was too hard not to predict. **SPOILER** I just knew the District Attorney wouldn’t be the bad guy and the Inspector would be. Easy. 

Not convinced you shouldn’t even rent this movie? If I see a car chase and think there’s something wrong with it, there probably was. As I said, I’m not that observant and not a film buff, but I can spot that the cars in the tunnel supposedly coming towards Reacher’s car on the wrong side of the street are stationary. My friend, who works in the car industry, also pointed out TC was driving a three speed automatic, so the stunts were a little over the top for such a standard model. Being a driver of an automatic (I can drive stick, promise! I was offered a bargain I couldn’t resist and I love it (him), I can understand this. You won’t find me doing 360 spins in my Yaris, or accelerating like that. Maybe I’m missing out – maybe I need to buy me an Audi like the one Reacher borrows from his attorney friend, Helen. 

And another thing. Helen’s (Rosamund Pike) portrayal was awful. She used the F word on her dad (the DA, no less), and she can’t decide if she’s a cop, a lawyer or in love with Reacher. There was too many frisson moments which came to nothing. The story doesn’t explain how her law company lets her take on the case in this film when at the beginning it’s explained no one in town wants it. And she’d not getting paid. How can she just ditch her job just to follow up on this seemingly impossible case? She’s not paying Reacher (who’s surviving on an army pension), but how is she keeping up with her insurance payments on the (now trashed) Audi? She didn’t give a convincing performance, but in a weird second ’24’ coincidence, she reminded me of Kim Bauer, Bauer’s daughter. 

Hmmm… I was really struggling to stop thinking about ’24’ and it’s been over a month since I last watched an episode. I hope someone buys me the final season (8, if anyone’s reading…) of ’24’ for my birthday in a few weeks. I also hope Tom Cruise doesn’t drag the Reacher character through a second movie. You know he’s just looking for a new series now he’s getting too old for ‘Mission Impossible‘.

**Note** 15 minutes later and I discover there will be a ‘Mission Impossible 5‘ in 2015…. Joy!

Give this one a miss, I would. 

Lou x

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