K-SCORE: 39
Director (Jack Reacher): Christopher McQuarrie
Director (Never Go Back): Edward Zwick
Writer (Jack Reacher): Christopher McQuarrie
Writers (Never Go Back): Richard Wenk, Edward Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz
Starring: Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Robert Duvall, Richard Jenkins, Werner Herzog, David Oyelowo, Cobie Smulders, Aldis Hodge, Danika Yarosh, Patrick Heusinger, Jai Courtney
Spoiler Level: Moderate
“humorless, rough around the edges, with entirely too much Jai Courtney”
Frequent readers of my website know that periodically I’ll do reviews for multiple films or entire franchises packed into one, and sometimes I’ll review sequels independently. In the case of Jack Reacher, for the purposes of the infallible, omnipotent, all-important K-SCORE, it would make far more sense for me to review the films separately. That’s largely because the first film in the series is a decent piece of cinema, humorless, rough around the edges, with entirely too much Jai Courtney, but decent noir nonetheless, and the sequel is shit. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, which might as well be called Jack Ryan: Never Stop Never Stopping, is a nigh worthless film, offering nothing new or interesting to an already over-saturated genre, bogged down with cliches, crummy dialogue, and some of the worst acting you can find from Hollywood stars outside of the American Pie franchise. The reason I wanted to combine them is because I want the series review to serve as an admonishment (dare I say lesson?) of the perils associated with this insane film industry practice of constantly shuffling around creative talent and using teams of idiots with alternative agendas to co-op script writing. They’re making camels when they do this and it comes at the cost of my enjoyment. Pick a fucking script. I can tolerate a bad one with promise, premise, and passion. I don’t know how many of these lifeless mannequins I can keep watching.
Jack Reacher is a dark film with source material for the character and a mostly followable plot involving a framed military sniper and the attorney and rogue former military police officer that investigate it. Tom Cruise isn’t at his best, but it’s still bliss watching the man run. Rosamund Pike does a decent job of not being annoying in a role where she plays a character just itching to be betrayed and kidnapped everywhere she goes. Spoiler Alert: she’s eventually betrayed and kidnapped. It has a number of really compelling scenes including one where Jack Reacher implies a woman is a slut and then beats up six guys outside of a bar. The finale is set in a quarry, which is an awesome and not-often explored location for a shootout and brawl. It also has a wonderful call and response dear to my heart, “Who’s going to bring these men to justice?” “I just did.” Yet much of the time the film plods along discussing the intricacies of its conspiracy, which isn’t really that clever. On the plus side, it’s also not terribly farfetched that an assassination would be made to look like a senseless act of violence by a psychopath. The first sniping scene, which takes place before even a single line of dialogue, is great, especially looking back after Jack Reacher has explained what really went on. The biggest fault, though, is that Jack Reacher, while kind of cool, doesn’t offer much as a protagonist besides fury, and if they wanted controlled rage and righteous killing, standard practice is to just cast Denzel Washington.
“They should have included a six-pack of Aspirin in the BluRay case.”
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back inserts an angry, humorless, military police officer next to this angry, humorless, former military police officer, and they decide Cobie Smulders should be the one to do it. Listening to her argue with Reacher about the responsibilities of child rearing and duties they have in their rogue-agents-on-the-run position is worse than awful. They should have included a six-pack of Aspirin in the BluRay case. Smulders is so bad she ruins both films. Her character’s superficial similarities to Reacher seem to be an argument for never watching either ever again. Her character also contributes almost nothing to the success of the Team Good-Guys. She loses multiple fights, finds herself at gunpoint frequently, and can’t seem to figure out what’s really going on in the corrupt military arms trade that wound herself wanted and on the run. All of that falls to Jack Reacher, who also has to deal with a fifteen-year-old pickpocket aerophobe that, based on her genetic makeup, is definitely not his daughter, but who he nevertheless thinks might be his daughter. She’s a tactical liability. I’m pretty sure she borrowed Rosamund Pike’s “Kidnap Me” sign and taped it to the back of her emo flannel sweater. Why villains in these stories become obsessed with kidnapping teenagers is beyond me. I feel most adults know that adolescent girls between the ages of fourteen and nineteen are not the solution to their or the anyone’s problems.
The team of writers seemed unable to come up with anything to do with the characters that isn’t present in the first film or isn’t commonplace in the genre. Characters rant on the phone about needing all the information and “needing it yesterday.” Jack Reacher fights a circle of goons at least three times, always preferring his fists when it’s clearly a gun matter. They steal at least three IDs, one cellphone, four credit cards, and a few weapons, always using the bumper technique so clearly spelled out in My Blue Heaven. They also reverse pickpocket cell phones as seen in the Bourne franchise time and time again. These phones always look to be from a different time period than the one we’re currently living in with chunky designs and hideous green-tinted displays. Rarely can one tell where the characters are; the most specific location given is Washington D.C., and yet at times Jack Reacher seems to wander on foot into rural Kentucky or some such place. The entirety of the plot is weakened by the fact that these two fugitive military police officers are eluding the actual military police at every turn, yet the villain seems to have a never-ending supply of beefy white men who can always track down Reacher and his womenfolk, even if Reacher always spots them and they lose every fight. And when it comes down to it, the villain is motivated primarily by his hatred for Reacher, who he believes he shares special kinship with and who he’s never met, and Reacher, for whom the same is true, is likewise motivated by his hatred of the villain. You know how bad this is? The three person writer team of Richard, Marshall, and the director have the antagonist’s character name as only “The Hunter” in the credits. It’s generic, cheap, and stupid - a film that no one actually seemed to want to fill with any specific content whatsoever. Tac on a generic costar, a generic crime, a generic few fights and chases in the middle, and the El Dia de los Muertos scene from one of those Daniel Craig bond films, only at night, and you got yourself a film. No, no, no. Find people who have something to say.
Averaging an average film with Jack Reacher: Never Go Back yields predictable results. That’s mostly what you see above. Yet I rewatched Jack Reacher just to ensure I remembered its adequacy correctly. Adequate, indeed, but also there’s a point where Reacher claims he’s going to drink Jai Courtney’s blood from a boot. That he doesn’t literally fulfill that promise is more than a little disappointing. It’s Jai Courtney. Someone sure should.