![]() I confess that I decided to read it before I saw Tom Cruise in the Jack Reacher movie only to discover that the movie is based on the ninth book in the Jack Reacher series, One Shot. This is not the type of mystery series that I typically gravitate to. Then Jack uncovers the identity of one of the murdered men and now nothing can keep him from exacting justice… After surviving a couple of murder attempts and then being found innocent, Jack is ready to leave town and never look back. Seems like Jack makes the perfect fall guy to cover up a couple of inexplicable murders in the small town. ![]() He stops in Margrave, Georgia on a whim to see if he can learn a bit more about Blind Blake, an old blues guitar player, only to be arrested for murder. Jack is currently enjoying his time being free and traveling the country as a kind of hobo. Army brat, former military policeman, very tall, very fair and very dangerous. Reacher aims a good deal lower than that, delivers in frequently thrilling ways, and sends the hero lumbering into the sunset, John Wayne-like, ready to do battle with all comers.Meet Jack Reacher. ![]() Look, if you want a smart, understated cranial classic, stream Power of the Dog. The actress is best remembered from the 2017 miniseries Little Women, and, indeed, Roscoe is to a large extent Reacher’s little woman here - earning his respect only when she fires off a perfect head shot to one of the dozens of bad guys who bite the dust during Reacher’s reign of righteous terror. Reacher is awash in testosterone, and we would drown in the stuff if not for the hero’s perky blonde sidekick, an officer named Roscoe, played by Willa Fitzgerald. Except, no Theseus is going to kill him Reacher is even more destruction-proof than a Marvel superhero. Reacher is something of a modern day Minotaur - half-bull, half-man, prowling a labyrinth of peril, reflexively doing battle with whatever challenger awaits around the next dark corner. I guess I think too much, and Reacher is not about thinking it’s about visceral, bare-knuckled, acid-in-the-face brawling. On the other hand, since the only reason Reacher stays in town is to avenge his brother’s death, you would think at some point someone would resolve the issue. It never happens, and I suspect both Child and the creators of this series were confident the ensuing tumult of bloody and violent diversions would push that puzzlement from the viewer’s mind. And, indeed, for the next seven episodes I kept waiting for someone to explain the mind-boggling randomness of that co-occurrence. “Doesn’t that seem like a pretty big coincidence - you just happen to walk into town the same day your brother is murdered?” one character asks early on. Reacher is at first a reluctant participant, but then the murder victim is identified: Shockingly - and improbably - it’s his own beloved brother, Joe, a Treasury Department investigator. ![]() His innocence is soon established, but the local chief of detectives (Malcolm Goodwin, channeling a young Denzel Washington) employs some shady legal technicalities in order to press Reacher into helping him crack the case. And while the script presents Reacher as a man of few words, Ritchson manages to deliver each spare line with an unspoken postscript: “By the way, if I wanted to I could tear your heart out right now.”īased on the first Reacher novel, 1997’s Killing Floor, this eight-part series finds Reacher, an ex-military drifter, randomly wandering into a small town - where he is promptly accused of murder, largely because he happened to be seen walking along a road near where the body was found. He has perfected the stilted yet imposing walk of a man with a lifetime of beefing up and brawling behind him. Six-foot-two, square-jawed Alan Ritchson - who’s made a career playing comic book heroes like Aquaman, Hawk, and Raphael, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle - is physically imposing in the role (although he could use a few more years and scars on him). I haven’t read the books, but I’ve got a feeling this new Prime Video series gets a lot closer to primal Reacher. Tom Cruise made two movies and a lot of money playing author Lee Child’s hardcore hero Jack Reacher - but fans of the books had a tough time accepting five-foot-seven Cruise as a guy described in the novels as six-foot-five with a face that “looked like it had been chipped out of rock by a sculptor who had ability but not much time.” Stars: Alan Ritchson, Malcolm Goodwin, Willa Fitzgerald
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |