Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
It's back-to-basics for Tom Cruise – and a lot of running – in this formulaic sequel.
Perhaps Tom Cruise should have heeded the sentiment of the
title of his new film: never go back. The first Jack Reacher instalment, cannily
titled Jack Reacher, was a thing of
beauty: a meticulously tooled thriller that played on the mythos of its
eponymous hero, a former military cop who emerges out of the shadows to see
justice done. One never saw him coming: he just happened to always be in the
right place. Here, that gift is bestowed on a nameless assassin (Patrick
Heusinger) who invariably seems to be one step ahead of Reacher in a familiar
plot involving trumped-up charges, corrupt officials and decommissioned munitions.
Of course, Reacher can always look after himself but there’s a chink in his
armour: a 15-year-old girl (Danika Yarosh) whose mother claims Reacher is the
father.
Edward Zwick, who previously directed Cruise in The Last Samurai (2003), is an efficient
filmmaker and he keeps the plates spinning in an agreeable fashion. But the
material he has been handed – from a script he co-wrote with Richard Wenk and Marshall
Herskovitz from Lee Child’s novel – is painfully formulaic. While the proceedings
are refreshingly old-school – there’s an awful lot of running down streets,
across traffic and over rooftops – the rest is old hat. In the hope of
consummating a telephonic flirtation with a Major Susan Turner (Cobie
Smulders), Reacher is appalled to find that she’s been locked up on espionage
charges. And even without knowing what a tall glass of water she happens to be,
Reacher smells a rat. As a blind date, it provides more adrenalin than your
usual night of passion and with a rebellious teenage girl thrown into the mix,
it proves to be quite a tryst.
Jack Reacher remains an engrossing protagonist – he’s really
good at filtering peripheral information and repackaging it as vital data – but
Cruise seems a tad more wooden than he did the first time round. Cobie Smulders
lends decent support as his smart, high-kicking cohort and Danika Yarosh (think
of a teenage Patricia Arquette) is not bad as the thorn in their romantic side.
But the maxed-up fisticuffs and familiar action scenarios (there’s even a chase
through a parade in New Orleans’ French Quarter) reduces the material to the
decidedly routine.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Tom Cruise,
Cobie Smulders, Aldis Hodge, Danika Yarosh, Patrick Heusinger, Holt McCallany, Austin
Hebert, Robert Catrini, Robert Knepper, Teri Wyble.
Dir Edward Zwick, Pro Tom Cruise, Don Granger and Christopher
McQuarrie, Screenplay Richard Wenk, Edward
Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, from the novel Never Go Back by Lee Child, Ph
Oliver Wood, Pro Des Clay A. Griffith,
Ed Billy Weber, Music Henry Jackman, Costumes
Liksa Lovaas.
Skydance Media/TC Productions-Paramount Pictures.
117 mins. USA/China. 2016. Rel: 20 October 2016. Cert. 12A.