Jack Reacher (2012)

I don't care what anyone tells you, this movie was sorely miscast.

I am a big fan of Lee Child's Jack Reacher series.  I've read all the books and I had a lot of trepidation when I heard that Paramount had optioned One Shot as a movie, seeing as it's not the first in the series and no one has done a movie on this character before.

Then they went and cast Tom Cruise and I lost all interest whatsoever.  I have nothing against the man, he is just not what I pictured in my head when I think Jack Reacher, a man described as 6'5", 240 lbs, blond and blue-eyed.  We're talking Chris Hemsworth bulked out like The Rock. 

Taking that aside, it's not a terrible action movie.  It's just a lousy Jack Reacher movie.

A sniper shoots five random people from a parking garage, then flees.  The police scour the area and find a thumbprint on a quarter in a meter belonging to James Barr (Joseph Sikora), a former Army sniper.  They arrest him and offer him a choice between life in prison and the death penalty if he will confess.  He says only "Get me Jack Reacher."  Reacher (Tom Cruise, sadly) is a former Military Police officer who roams the land, dispensing justice.  He sees the case on the news and immediately heads for Pittsburgh to confer.  But he's not there to clear Barr's name.  Due to a previous incident that was hushed up by the military, he is there to put Barr down for good.  Only a plucky young attorney (Rosamund Pike) can convince him that all is not as it seems with this case.

I found it unfortunate that the movie could not manage the same level of intelligence and suspense as the novel.  They compensated by adding more humor and a car chase.  Werner Herzog is underused as the villain, also a shame since I think he would have been super-creepy if we could have seen more of him.  Conversely, Robert Duvall's part was expanded a bit, if I remember the book correctly.  I can't really complain about that too much, though, since he was effortlessly charming.  As a matter of fact, I really liked the rest of the cast.  I just couldn't help myself from mentally replaying scenes with someone else in the lead.