Jack Reacher: Never Go
Back is a largely lackluster action movie that’s nonetheless further proof
Cruise is one of our best action stars. He’s simply believable. In 2012, we first met
his Jack Reacher, writer Lee Child’s ex-military drifter who specializes in
helping people out of tight spots before leaving on the next bus out of town, with a compelling mystery, crackerjack plot, and crisp staging from
writer-director Christopher McQuarrie. It made the character a good fit for
this stage of Cruise’s persona. He’s aged into a presence of pure drive and
effortful effortlessness. His Mission:
Impossibles are the best way to see his smooth-yet-grizzled total
confidence and sly dry humor, but Reacher
allows him to play it in the lowest, coolest key. It’s not hard to imagine
Lee Marvin or Clint Eastwood in the role fifty years ago. Here Reacher survives
a low-functioning sequel with his coolness intact. It’s like a dud episode in a
procedural you otherwise enjoy.
This time around, Reacher heads to Washington D.C. to meet
an army friend (Cobie Smulders). Once there he discovers she’s in prison,
framed for a crime he knows she wouldn’t commit. Turns out she’s run afoul of a
scheming defense contractor who spies Reacher’s inquiries into her case and
decides to frame him, too. So Reacher breaks her out of prison, then goes on
the lamb to clear their names and bring down the mysterious arms-dealing scheme
that can afford to send trained assassins all over the place. It’s technically
a mystery, but it operates at a simple level, showing all the cards pretty
early and then watching as Cruise and Smulders arrive at the conclusions of
which we’re already well aware. I mean, one look at the hitman (Holt McCallany)
hiding behind sunglasses and stubble, or the cadaverous General (Robert
Knepper), and it’s obvious who the bad guys are and what their conspiracy is.
It plays like a highlight reel, all outwitting and reversals
of power, Cruise swaggering into a room and outsmarting everyone or, when that
fails, punching all the right guys to get the job done. There are some small
pleasures to be found, like Reacher walloping a man in the head by punching
through a car window. But under director Edward Zwick’s bland craftsmanship and
co-writer Richard Wenk’s routine plotting, it’s a little mushy, overfamiliar,
bland. We get a car chase, and it’s just screeching tires and inevitable
conclusions. The gunfights are just mindless rounds and big booms. The
fistfights are bruising, but inelegantly choreographed. And the central spine
of investigation isn’t so much finding and piecing together clues as the
characters luckily ending up in the exact right place for the story to keep
churning them along. It’s like watching a smarter movie on fast forward, moving
past each scene before it can settle into a better, more effective rhythm.
Aside from Cruise’s dependability, the most enjoyable aspect
of this movie is its 80’s-sequel-style jerry-rigged family until.
Cruise and Smulders end up watching out for a fifteen-year-old girl (Danika
Yarosh) who needs their protection, leading to amusing scenes where she pouts
and complains and the adults have to say things like, “now, listen here, young
lady.” There’s even a whole to-do about the girl sneaking out to try some
investigating of her own, leading to the stern paternal figures awkwardly
falling into the sitcom “We were worried! Where were you?” speech. It’s not
much, but it’s there, just one of a few fine small touches. Other fleeting
pleasures include learning Smulders can do that Tom Cruise run: stiff spin standing
straight up, rigid arms swinging with mechanical precision, a grim stare of
determination sharpening the eyes. It’s funny to see them together, two
perfectly speedy pedestrians hurtling the human body as fast as it can go. You
take your mild enjoyment where you can get it in a polished boredom, a
middle-of-the-road programmer. If we meet Reacher again, let’s hope it’s in a
better movie.
