Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

Dir: Edward Zwick

2016

**

I enjoyed 2012’s Jack Reacher (now also known as Jack Reacher: One Shot) even though I was unfamiliar with Lee Child’s Jack Reacher series. I’m still largely unfamiliar with Child’s series but I enjoyed the original film enough to watch the sequel. Now the 2012 film was forgettably average, indeed, I’ve pretty much forgotten most of the story's plot, however, it had something a bit special about. I like Tom Cruise, loved seeing Robert Duvall again, thought David Oyelowo was great and even liked Rosamund Pike (who I generally don’t like). I liked the pace of the film, its direction and its subtle approach to the action thriller. What I really loved about it though was its villain, played by the genius Werner Herzog. Casting Herzog as a cold and calculating killer was a masterstroke. How Cruise’s Reacher beats him was also a short and sharp breath of fresh air. There is a no nonsense approach to both films that I love but 2016’s Jack Reacher: Never Go Back has far less going for it than its predecessor. Firstly, it doesn’t star Werner Herzog, which is the downfall of most films. It doesn’t star anyone from the first film, which is fine, but I feel it lacked a level of familiarity. The first film has several great actors, Never Go Back only has one – Cobie Smulders, who is brilliant in her role but is never really supported by her co-stars of by the film’s script. I would have been happier if she were the main character and Jack Reacher had been somewhere else. The film started so well, cutting through all the usual crap within the credits intro. Reacher and Cobie’s character Major Susan Turner, are both on level pegging, their relationship is explored fairly early on, so the usual action/thriller romance is over with before the story begins. While the action is taking place and people are getting kicked, punched and shot all over the place, there isn’t even a hint of love or sexual tension in the air, as it would be if it were real life. A huge pet hate of mine put straight to bed. However, the film takes a dramatic turn for the worst with the introduction of Reacher’s would-be secret daughter, played by the incredibly annoying Danika Yarosh. Every single cliché regarding a child in an action/thriller is resurrected and what seemed to be a unique take on the genre, soon stumbles into a colour-by-number thriller you’d expect from a straight to video film from the 1980s. Tom Cruise spends most of the film looking confused and bewildered and looks as if he’d just completed a course in ‘smell the fart’ acting. Patrick Heusinger’s bad guy assassin is an uninteresting two-dimensional stereotype and the film’s big villain is as about as villainous as a duvet. Aldis Hodge’s character had potential but was never given much of a chance and only Cobie Smulders can be really proud of her performance. It was amazing a sequel was green-lit following the poor reception of the first film, I was glad at first but then I had no idea they could have got it this wrong. Christopher McQuarrie had only made one film before One Shot but he has since proved he’s a force to be reckoned with in the action/thriller genre, Edward Zwick on the other hand has made some great films, I have no idea how he got it so wrong. It’s incredibly uninteresting, and when it isn’t uninteresting it is annoying – which is worse.