When we see his face, I recognize him as Jai Courtney, Bruce Willis's son from Die Hard. He calmly puts on his sunglasses and proceeds to shoot people: a man on a bench, who looks like he's waiting for someone, and 4 women walking in various directions, one carrying a little girl.
By the time the police are on the scene, the shooter is long gone. The lead detective, Emerson (David Oyelowo), discovers a shell casing in one of the cracks in the cement and also, because of the crushed cones, thinks to check the meter. This yields a quarter with a usable fingerprint; it identifies James Barr. When they raid his house to arrest him, they find the brown shoes, the license plate (PA CHC 6785) and matching bullets. The DA, Alex Rodin (Richard Jenkins), who never takes cases unless he can win them, takes this one. In cases like this, he always pursues the death penalty.
When Emerson interviews Barr, he tells him that "the DA is wondering if Barr's going to walk like a man or cry like a pussy." Friendly interview this is not. They offer him life if he confesses or the death penalty if he doesn't. Barr takes the paper and writes something, but it's not what they expected: GET JACK REACHER. The camera pans and the man they've arrested (Joseph Sikora) is *not* the man we saw shoot those people.
When Rodin and Emerson try to find Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise), he's a ghost with no driver's license, credit cards, residence, email, cell phone... As Emerson describes him, we see Reacher see the news, go buy new clothes (his one set) and purchase a bus ticket with cash. He also gets at least $2K from Western Union. As Emerson declares that they're not going to be able to find Reacher unless he wants to be found, Reacher arrives.
Emerson and Rodin take Reacher to visit Barr. Barr is now in the hospital, in a coma. He was jumped in custody; from Emerson and Rodin's looks, (I'm not quite convinced that they feel that bad about it.) Rodin asks why Barr wanted him as a witness. Reacher doesn't think he did. This stymies them. (Reacher's comments will make sense as the movie continues.) There's a beat and Reacher asks about evidence. Rodin won't share so Reacher says goodbye. When Emerson chases after him, he makes it clear that Barr and he are not friends. When Emerson asks why Barr did it, Reacher answers that he's crazy. Rodin grabs Reacher's arm and Reacher warns him not to do that.
Barr's attorney (Rosamund Pike) arrives and we discover that this is going to be complicated. Her name is Helen Rodin and she's the DA's daughter. She makes Rodin and Emerson leave. She refers to Reacher as Barr's friend and he is quick to correct her. This leads to her asking why he came to help and he clarifies that he's not here to help, he's here to *bury* Barr. (And that is literally.)
It's a construction site and a big brown-paper bag is delivered to a man (the guy who played Baelfire on 'Once Upon a Time'). Cop? or something else? (We later learn his name is Linsky.)
Helen and Reacher end up at a coffee shop. Here we get Barr's backstory. He trained as a sniper and spent 2 years in Iraq, never firing on anyone. Reacher declares that there are 4 types of people who join the military:
- Family trade
- Patriotic
- Need a job
- Want a legal way to kill someone
Helen promises Reacher full access as her lead investigator and he agrees on the condition that she look at the victims objectively. This leads her to visiting the families of the victims. It rattles her, especially the father of one of the women who just happened to have a gun sitting under his newspaper next to his barcalounger.
Reacher goes and looks at the site of the attack. Linsky is watching him and sweating as Reacher calmly surveys the river walk and the surrounding area, including the view from a nearby bridge. Linsky somehow has Reacher's file.
Reacher goes and looks at the evidence and Emerson is cocky. Reacher doesn't take notes, but isn't intimidated when Emerson tries to show him up. He asks why Barr might have paid for parking (the quarter that gave Barr's prints) and is still wondering about it at the hopping bar he visits later that night. He notices a girl arguing with a guy and soon after said girl slides into his booth and tries to pick him up. Reacher isn't biting. She's surprised when she asks his name and he tells her "Jimmy Reese." He notices and enjoys taking several ways to say that the girl is cheap, like a hooker.
Girl's 'brothers' saunter up and challenge Reacher to fight. He sighs and tells them to pay their check first. Before they begin (5 on 1), Reacher reminds the doofus that he wanted this. He quickly takes out doofus and 2 of his friends. (I love that he has no problem kicking the guys in their crotch. If I didn't like Reacher before, I do now.) Cops almost immediately arrive to stop the fight. (Frame job, anyone?)
When Helen comes to spring him from jail, she is hot because the fight makes her look bad. Reacher's unfazed but knows that he's onto something, especially because he made Linsky and knows he's not a cop (because he was driving a Cadillac). Helen goes over the victims:
- Chrissy Farrior was a 22-year-old nanny of a 6 year old, about to leave on a trip to China. She was only still there because the little girl wanted Chrissy at her birthday party. They were there to buy the girl a party dress.
- Rita Coronado was a cleaning lady who was late for work. She'd been buying tickets to a professional baseball game for herself and her high school son, Marco, an honor student.
- Nancy Holt had told her husband that she was taking the car to be serviced. Instead she was buying a surprise gift (that she paid for in cash) for their anniversary a few days away.
- Oline Archer's husband had recently died after spending his entire life slaving to grow his construction business. She had helped it to grow into one of the largest contractors in the country and even though she hated it when he was alive, she couldn't let it go after he was gone. She'd just secured a loan to be able to keep the business.
- Darren Sawyer was an investment broker who worked in Rita's building. His relationship with his wife had been strained more recently. His body was found beside a fresh bouquet of roses that he'd bought that morning.
Barr was the classic loaner, so Reacher gives Helen her next task -- I find it humorous that he's her investigator but she's the one doing all the investigating -- getting a list of where Barr hung out (bars, bowling alleys, strip clubs, gun ranges, anywhere someone would remember him).
Ominous music and Linsky meets the actual shooter (credits say that his name is Charlie) is an obscure place, with the big boss hanging out in the shadows. Linsky doesn't want to even look in the big boss's direction. In this scene, we find out that the big boss is called The Zek (Werner Herzog) and he's pissed because Linsky sent Doofus and his buddies. Linsky has it handled but Charlie points out how it's really not.
After listening a moment, The Zek (Russian for Prisoner, заключенный) steps out of the shadows. (At this point we know that Linsky's dead.) The Zek explains how he got his name: he was a prisoner in Siberia and chewed off the fingers on his left hand to keep the gangrene from killing him. He's chewed off 3 on the right to keep from going to the mines. Basically, anything to survive.
The Zek proposes leniency for Linsky if Linsky shows the same amount of desperation and determination. Linsky can't bite off his own fingers so Charlie shoots him. Scene ends with Charlie pulling out a hacksaw. (He doesn't even blink or blanch over it. That plus the fact that Charlie has all his fingers leads me to conclude that Charlie is a sociopath who has no problem with killing in the slightest. And he must be a very good lieutenant for The Zek.)
Reacher uses Barr's credit card statement to find the girl from the bar, who leads her to Doofus (Jeb). (Reacher is kind enough to borrow Jeb's Camarro to go visit Jeb. He also advises the girl to get out of town.) At Jeb's house, he finds an older woman baked from the meth Jeb makes. He finds hastily cleaned-out drawers and a ripped-off shower curtain. He also gets hit with a tire iron by an even bigger doofus and his buddy.
I've never seen henchmen fight each other over dealing the death blow, but these 2 doofuses do. Reacher's in the bathroom, so there's no space. Doofus 2 whacks Doofus 1 in the face with his baseball bat. This gives Reacher the opportunity to grab Doofus 2 and shove a thumb in his left eye. (Like I said, anything to get the job done. Smart.) Then he uses the guy's head to knock Doofus 1 out.
One of the other bruisers from the bar also arrives with a gun, but the guy's no match for Reacher, who quickly disarms the bruiser while trapping the guy's finger in the trigger guard. This guy confirms that Jeb's the guy Linsky got rid of, and Reacher 'borrows' bruiser's car. A man in an Audi follows him. (Cop? It's not a Cadillac.)
When Reacher meets up with Helen again, he reviews what he found: The person who staged this was smart. Barr isn't smart. Even though 99% of the evidence didn't exist in Baghdad, it was because Barr was well trained, not smart. Barr's targets in Baghdad were easy: enclosed space, straight line. Standing on the bridge would have given him that and he wouldn't have even had to get out of his van. The bullet that was found was a plant. His conclusion: James Barr is innocent.
We do, of course, learn who the real target was, who helped frame Barr for it and how they set him up. Robert Duvall has a fantastic supporting role as a gun range owner. There is the inevitable 'Lethal Weapon' showdown between Reacher and Charlie (of course, Reacher is better) and Reacher doles out 'justice' all around.
One thing I liked about this movie (among others) is that there *wasn't* a love story tacked on. There was some chemistry there but Reacher always kept it business and there wasn't some obvious, lame kiss before the end.
I also liked the last scene with Helen, when Barr is out of his coma. He has no memory of what happened but believes that he must have done it, since they said he did. He starts to cry, because he doesn't even remember *wanting* to kill anyone. He declares that he isn't going to fight it, because he's done bad things before and gotten away with them. Helen asks him how he would do it, and he answers the answer Reacher said he would: from the bridge so he didn't even have to get out of the van and wouldn't have to police his brass. He declares that Helen can't protect him. No one can. The man who's coming doesn't care about the law or proof, only about what's right. (My take away from this scene is that Reacher's threat was enough to stop Barr from ever doing anything again, out of self-preservation.)
Tom Cruise is excellent as always (even though this is his typical action role). I like Rosamund Pike but I didn't quite feel like she held her own with Cruise. This surprised me. The latest movie I watched her in was Gone Girl and she was cold-blooded, charming and manipulative in her vulnerability, a true sociopath. She had this presence in scenes where she wasn't with Cruise, but it's almost as if she was star struck or intimidated and that translated into the film.
Jack Reacher is a well-paced action movie. It's well written and the characters -- even though there's no real arc in the film -- are well-rounded and 3-dimensional. Reacher isn't just a studly action star, he cares about the collateral damage that his presence might provoke. Helen isn't just an idealistic lawyer with daddy issues, she's a competent woman who can take care of herself who is in this because she has character. Cash, the gun range owner, isn't just a Second Amendment gun nut; he's a guy who puts his money where his mouth is and is studied with his fire arms, only taking the shot when necessary. Even Charlie, the main bad guy, is written and acted in a way that you get a sense of who he is, rather than him just being a cookie-cutter villain.
My Rating: 7.5/10
Links:
IMDb page for movie
Wikipedia page for movie
Wikipedia page for book series by Lee Child.
Reviews:
Blueray review
Bored and Dangerous review
DVD Talk blu-ray review
Film Connoisseur review
Film Critic Esq review
Loving the Stories review
Movie Case Files review
Movie Man Jackson review
Radiator Heaven review
No comments:
Post a Comment