Theater Whore: Jack Reacher

Last night East and I went to check out Jack Reacher. East wasn’t all that excited after seeing the trailer and I wanted to see it but wasn’t dying to until I heard a review saying how there’s more to it than the trailer showed. I had fallen into the trailer trap plenty of times and ended up missing out on really good films because of the bad trailer. So after some convincing we headed to The Cineramadome which is connected to The Arclight and checked it out.

I hadn’t been in this portion of the theater I think since Spiderman 2. It had been years. I miss this theater. We sat up high in row Q and started the movie. It begins with a guy getting ready to shoot folks in Pittsburgh  People in the theater were feeling way uncomfortable but not me because I know the difference between a trained sniper and some asshole that likes to shoot schools. So this guy picks off five people and drives off. A guy is caught and arrested and as he is being interviewed writes down “Get Jack Reacher.”

Emerson played by David Oyelowo and Alex Rodin played by Richard Jenkins who is always good start talking about who Reacher is. He’s pretty much a drifter that was raised in the military, got demoted, came back and rose higher, and then left. He shows up as they are talking about him like Jesus. Reacher talks to everyone like he has no time for their bullshit and leaves. Rodin’s daughter who is a lawyer named Helen played by Rosamund Pike and her boobs. Seriously, her boobs are very prominent in this.

I'm sorry. Did you say something?

She gets mad that he was talking to her client and Reacher points out that her client is in a coma. The cops let some prisoners whip his ass on the way to jail and jacked him up. Reacher doesn’t know why the accused shooter, James Barr, contacted him since years ago Reacher tried to prosecute him for murder years ago. Barr is a sniper that never got to see action so he happened to kill some bad guys without knowing they were bad guys.

Reacher starts to investigate what is going on since he doesn’t really think Barr is the shooter. He tells Helen to go and talk to the family of the victims and she ends up at a guys house whose daughter was shot. By the way, they show the shootings from multiple angles multiple times. I sold my soul years ago for beautiful teeth and great oral skills so it didn’t bother me as much as it did some. This guy she’s interviewing is obviously at the end of his rope and has a gun sitting right fucking there! She barely makes it out and there’s a jumpscare that made this girl in the theater scream. East and I could barely contain ourselves.

This guy should be the next Bond villain. 

You find out there’s a guy named The Zec who is almost like a Kaiser Soze type of figure. He is played by Werner Herzog and is creepy as all hell. He has like his thumbs and one finger left because he chewed them off in prison! Dude is fucking bonkers! He tries to make a dude bite his own fingers off and of course he cant. Shit, I couldn’t. East said she would just take a while until they got bored. Now this guy was being fucked with because of a botched hit.

Reacher was sitting in a bar drinking coffee when this little chick comes and sits down with him. He gives her a fake name and hits on him. He calls her slutty but not quite and her boyfriend wants a fight. Reacher tries talking him and his friends out of it and tells them how the fight is gonna go…which it does. Its pretty cool but made me cross my legs twice. Reacher is then arrested.

Reacher goes to find out more about where Barr could’ve been shooting and training and heads to a gun range run by Cash played by Robert Duvall who is great. I loved his character. Cash figures out who Reacher is by his fake name and shooting skills. He convinces him to let him check out the security footage and sees someone who is the real shooter. Shit starts to get even deeper when dots begin to get connected and you find out the real motives for people’s actions.

I wont spoil any more of the film for folks. If you’re on the fence about seeing it just do it. You wont be disappointed. There are so many funny moments in this because of Tom Cruise’s deadpan delivery. There is an amazing car chase scene that had me getting far too hyper. Speaking of the car, they had one of them, a Chevrolet Chevelle 1970, sitting out front of the theater. East took a bunch of pictures of it. This movie would’ve made my Best Movies Of 2012 list if I had seen it one day sooner.

Pictures courtesy of East.