Had the exact same film Jack Reacher not been based on a huge-selling series of books, starred an A-lister, and been heavily advertised, it would be a jewel, something to tell your fellow crime aficionados about after it’s forgotten, something akin to The Outfit (although it’s not as good as that one), or any number of B-movie crime gems that aren’t masterpieces but are a lot of fun years later.
But those three things I listed did happen, so expectations are different. The engendered expectations do not make Jack Reacher (based on One Shot, which I have not read) less worth watching, although the faithful will have their share of disappointments.
Should they? Sure, Tom Cruise isn’t as tall as Reacher any more than Parker has a brother in The Outfit (the book), but Cruise does bring the charisma and the acting chops. (If your knee-jerk is, “I hate Tom Cruise,” I offer Magnolia (one of my all-time favorite movies), Rock of Ages (which is a hot mess but he’s brilliant in it), and even Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol as my counterpoint. Also, Rain Man.)
If we’ve learned anything as Parker fans, it’s to keep the expectations of a movie adaptation of a book or series of books low. It helps that I enjoy the Reacher series but I’m not married to it. Jack Reacher, the movie, is a great time-waster, even if it has some stark differences from Jack Reacher, the books. It’s still in theaters, and I can’t honestly say jump on it at the cinema if your budget is low or your time is tight, but as a three-buck rental or a Netflix stream? Good popcorn flick.
As I often do with reviews, I’ll get the negative out of the way with Gangster Squad on my way to being largely positive. There is evidence of a significant rewrite of the third act, a speculation I’d love to write more about but would involve major spoilers (also, thoughtful, in-depth writing). Maybe I’ll delve into that a few weeks after it comes out on video.
But the movie is filmed and staged beautifully, the acting ranges from solid to great (except for Sean Penn chewing the scenery like one of Michael Vick’s pit bulls on one of Michael Vick’s other pit bulls in the first half), and the pacing is superb in that pulp-fiction boom-boom-boom kind of way that we all love.
Flaws? It’s got ’em. A few clunky lines of dialog, no one shoots a full automatic that way in a situation where ammo is at a premium, it’s not possible that no one other than Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, and a couple of extras smoked cigarettes in 1948 LA, and the I-damn-near-guarantee-it-happened rewrite I can’t tell you too much about so as not bring spoilers. Also, without doing actual research into the history of Mickey Cohen, I’m reasonably confident that the film isn’t entirely historically accurate.
But is it a good time at the movies? Hell, yeah, it is, and all can be forgiven for that. It’s a blast. Grab your popcorn and enjoy, at the theater if it’s convenient. Pulpy, pretty, violent, and fun.
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Good review, Trent. I guess that’s why my Dad enjoyed the Reacher film more than I, he had no idea of the character from the books.
Glad you liked it. I found it more of a mediocre experience.
Some films, you cannot predict how you will respond to them. I had my arm twisted to go see The Hobbit last week, and I thought I was going to hate it.
There were some things about it I didn’t like (namely Gandalf gets the band of Dwarves/Hobbit out of almost every cliffhanger at the last moment) but on the whole I liked the experience–even got choked up a couple of times.
I’ll be seeing Gangster Squad soon… And I literally cannot wait to see Parker on the 25th!
Nice quickie reviews Trent. I’ll probably wait until the DVD release to see Reacher, but my wife and I saw Gangster Squad on Sunday and found it enjoyable. Plenty of top notch Hollywood style action and the 1940’s setting was done pretty well for the most part. I wish there was a nightclub or restaurant like Slapsie Maxie’s to go to nowadays! All in all, it was a nice bit of escapism for a Sunday afternoon and took a little bit of the sting out of the ass whuppin my Green Bay Packers took on Saturday night!
Cluelo:
My Packers, too. Man, that hurt.
David:
Turns out I was right about the rewrite. They made some changes after the Aurora, CO massacre. I doubt we’ll get a director’s cut, but I hope we do.
And Gandalf as deus ex machina was faithful to the book! If I remember right.
Speaking of movies, and with the new Parker flick only a week away, Turner Classic Movies is showing 1968’s The Split, on Wednesday, January 23rd at 6:00 am eastern time, 5:00 am central time.
I’ve never seen this film (and a number of folks on this site have suggested that’s probably a good thing!) but I have always been pretty curious about it so my DVR is set to record!
Clue
I think that’s likely the studio’s clever way of making the Statham flick look like a masterpiece by comparison.
I’m sure if The Split had any true merit, they wouldn’t have scheduled it at 5:00 in the morning!
Thanks, Clue, I’ll DVR it. It’ll be fun, probably, even if not a great Parker adaptation. Lot of great actors.
Trent: I saw Gangster Squad and man, was it predictable and cliche’-ridden. I would heartily suggest anyone considering seeing this to wait for it to come to Netflix or OnDemand. It might be worth a 5 buck rental but it certainly is not worth throwing your clothes on and driving to the local ciniplex for.
Man, the script was bad. Acting wise, pretty decent. But for any history buffs: DO NOT expect accuracy here. But the thing that killed it for me was how I knew everything was going to happen before it did. I won’t list the actual predictable plot contrivances because I don’t want to spoil it for those who are planning to see it but man, the script seems like it’s from a bad 1980’s TV film.
It’s more like the script is from the good 1980’s cinema film The Untouchables – pretty much every plot beat, from the structure of the group (old guy? Check. nerdy guy? Check. Young hothead? Hmm, better get two of them…) to the various twists and turns are lifted directly from it.
That’s not to say I didn’t have fun with it, but pretty much anything where guys put on hats and big coats and run around shooting tommy guns is going to get at least two stars from me.
Tony summed up my feelings perfectly. While acknowledging that it had problems galore, I still thought it was a fun night out at the movies.
It’s possible that Hollywood has beaten my standards into submission.
Yeah, Tony, I got that “they’re trying for that Untouchables” vibe, too. I’m just so sick of Hollywood dumbing every single film down to a 10 year old’s level.
As a fan of the Matz comic Bullet to the Head, it’s atrocious how they took that great little existentialist noir comic book and are dumbing it down and making it a by the numbers Stallone vehicle.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Parker–I really, really want to like this film.
I didn’t realise Bullet to the Head was based on a Matz comic. Now I’m much more interested to see it (even though I don’t hold out high hopes).
I’m honestly trying not to think that much about how Parker comes from awesome source material… if it’s just a fun Statham film then I’ll happily take it as that and try not to think of how much better it could have been.
Then again, this time last year there was talk about how Dredd was going to be a train wreck with the director having been kicked out of the editing room, and (as a fan of the comics) that film couldn’t have turned out better…
Tony:
Can’t speak to the comics, but Dredd as a movie was an awfully pleasant surprise. Maybe even more surprising was that something like that received largely good reviews!