Jack Reacher arrived in North American theaters on December 21, 2012, a week after its Pittsburgh premiere was postponed in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Christopher McQuarrie wrote and directed the adaptation of Lee Child’s novel One Shot, the ninth book in the Jack Reacher series. Tom Cruise plays the title character. The film runs 130 minutes.
Trailer, via Paramount Pictures.
Five Bodies on the North Shore Trail
The opening is the movie’s best idea. A man drives a van into a rooftop parking garage near the Allegheny River and PNC Park, drops a 1968 quarter into the parking meter, and shoots five people on the river’s North Shore Trail from more than a thousand yards away. Pittsburgh Police, led by Detective Calvin Emerson, find a shell casing and the quarter. A fingerprint on the coin belongs to James Barr, an ex-US Army sniper.
The raid on Barr’s house turns up the van, the rifle, and Barr unconscious. District Attorney Alex Rodin offers him life in prison for a full confession, or a guaranteed death sentence — Rodin has never lost a solid case. Barr writes four words on a legal pad instead: “GET JACK REACHER.”
A Drifter Walks Into the Station
Reacher is a drifter and a former U.S. Army Military Police Corps investigator, rank of major. He shows up at the Pittsburgh police station asking to see Barr. Emerson and Rodin refuse to let him view the evidence but allow the visit. Barr was attacked by fellow inmates in transit and is in a coma.
At the hospital Reacher meets Helen Rodin, Barr’s defense attorney and the DA’s embittered daughter. She sizes up his expertise and hires him as her court investigator. Reacher tells her Barr joined the military to satisfy a sociopathic bloodlust and randomly killed four military contractors during the Iraq War. Barr was never court-martialed: his victims were raping Iraqi women, and the Army wanted to avoid public scrutiny. Reacher had promised to bring him justice if he ever killed again.
Cruise Is 5’7″. Reacher Is 6’5″.
Cruise was in talks for the part in June 2011 and closed his deal the following month. Fans of the novels objected loudly, because the actor is 5’7″ and Reacher is 6’5″ in the books. Lee Child defended the choice, saying it would be impossible to find a suitable actor to play the giant Reacher and recreate the feel of the book onscreen.
Child’s argument is worth quoting at length, because it is the whole case for this casting:
Reacher’s size in the books is a metaphor for an unstoppable force, which Cruise portrays in his own way.
He added: “With another actor you might get 100% of the height but only 90% of Reacher. With Tom, you’ll get 100% of Reacher with 90% of the height.”
Herzog, Duvall, and a Pittsburgh Desk Sergeant
Rosamund Pike was cast as the female lead after Hayley Atwell and Alexa Davalos were in the running. By September 2011 the main cast was locked with David Oyelowo, Richard Jenkins, Jai Courtney and Robert Duvall. Werner Herzog, known mainly as a director, signed on in October 2011 as the film’s chief villain, Zec Chelovek. Lee Child cameos as a Pittsburgh police desk sergeant.
Production began in October 2011, shot on location in Pittsburgh, and wrapped in January 2012. Joe Kraemer composed the score, performed by the Hollywood Studio Symphony. Dwayne Johnson said in April 2017 that he had been in the running to play Reacher before Cruise was hired.
The Problem With the Middle Stretch
The mechanics are sturdy. The quarter, the fingerprint, the thousand-yard shot — McQuarrie builds a clean procedural engine and then lets Reacher take it apart. What the film cannot fix is the gap between the man on the page and the man on the screen. Cruise is a movie star playing a drifter, and the performance never quite shakes the star.
The Iraq backstory is the movie’s heaviest lift, and it lands badly. Reacher explains Barr’s bloodlust and the Army’s cover-up in a single hospital conversation, then the film moves on. A killing spree, four dead contractors, Iraqi women who were raped, an institution that buried all of it — that is a film’s worth of material delivered as exposition.
Where the Cast Actually Works
Ranking what holds up:
- Werner Herzog as Zec Chelovek — the chief villain is the film’s strangest and most effective presence.
- Robert Duvall as Martin Cash — a late addition that gives the back half a pulse.
- Rosamund Pike as Helen Rodin — the idealistic attorney who hires Reacher and never gets enough to do.
- David Oyelowo as Det. Emerson — a functional cop in a script that needs him to be more.
- Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher — competent, watchable, and the wrong shape for the part.
The supporting cast is where the movie earns its keep. Herzog’s villain carries a secret and a skill for violence, and the film is better whenever he is on screen. Duvall arrives late and steadies things. Cruise is the one piece that never settles.
What the Sequel Confirms
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back followed in 2016, based on the eighteenth book in the series, Never Go Back (2013). In a 2018 interview, two years after that sequel, Child agreed the readers had been right about the casting. “I really enjoyed working with Cruise. He’s a really, really nice guy. We had a lot of fun,” Child said. “But ultimately the readers are right. The size of Reacher is really, really important and it’s a big component of who he is.”
That concession is the most telling document attached to this film. The author made the commercial argument in 2011 and the artistic one in 2018, and the movie sits awkwardly between them.
Jack Reacher is a competent thriller with a good engine and a miscast center. The procedural beats land. The villain lands. The star does not, and no amount of Pittsburgh location work or Hollywood Studio Symphony score covers for it. The film’s own tagline — “The law has limits. He does not.” — promises a force of nature. What arrives is a movie star in a drifter’s coat.
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