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'Jack Reacher: Never Go Back' - Movie Review

Updated on: 21 October,2016 01:41 PM IST  | 
Johnson Thomas | mailbag@mid-day.com

'Jack Reacher' had a lukewarm reception at the box office world wide and this return aptly titled 'Never Go Back' may well be a visibly ageing and not quite convincingly super-heroic Tom Cruise's last ditch effort to test the waters for a successful long-running franchise to call his own

'Jack Reacher: Never Go Back' - Movie Review


'Jack Reacher : Never Go Back'
U/A; Action/Drama
Director: Edward Zwick

Cast: Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders, Danika Yarosh, Patrick Heusinger, Aldis Hodge, Austin Hébert, Holt McCallany
Rating: 


'Jack Reacher' had a lukewarm reception at the box office world wide and this return aptly titled 'Never Go Back' may well be a visibly ageing and not quite convincingly super-heroic Tom Cruise's last ditch effort to test the waters for a successful long-running franchise to call his own. Given that Lee Child's popular character from the novel was more of a muscled hulk than a pocket sized hunk, it's not very surprising that the fans of the book haven't quite taken to Cruise's efforts at overreach.


In this lackluster edition the itinerant problem solver has to steal his way out of a murder charge as well as keep his replacement Major and a surprise progeny away from harms door. Imagine a loner with no middle name, no fixed address, one who barely speaks, living in fleabag motels, who hitchhikes and communicates mostly with his fists, saddled with a potential girlfriend and a teenage daughter. That's what you get here. Jack (Tom Cruise) is engaged in subtle flirting with female Army major(his replacement) Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders) over brief telephone conversations and seeks her help to reign in a set of rogue county officials. That done, he drops in at the major's office only to find that she has had a bloody conspiracy wrongly pinned on her. And while he is thinking his way out of that bad situation a teenage girl, Samantha Dayton (Danika Yarosh) jumps into the picture claiming to be his illegitimate daughter from past dalliance.

Watch the trailer of 'Jack Reacher: Never Go Back'

The events play out as a bad remake of a 'JAG' series with a storyline that appears to have thematic similarities to Clint Eastwood's 'The Outlaw Josey Wales.' It is apparent that Jack is socially dysfunctional and can operate comfortably only when violence and intrigue waylay his life. Cruise, not quite an Eastwood, has the sincerity to make that affect but his diminutive size and insignificant body mass doesn't seem suited to the challenge put forth here. As a result the villains have to come at him in one's and two's in order to be vanquished effectively. Para Source the arms supply conglomerate that's the source of all evil here, has a bunch of loose ends (assassins) who suddenly up the ante thinking they are more than what they are hired to do. The chief villain here (despite his hired assassin status), wrests that title from his relentless pursuit of team Reacher. Director Edward Zwick( who also helmed Cruise's 'The Last Samurai') loses the plot entirely when he forces that track onto the narrative in order to gain currency from a stagey, though furious one-track climax.

The movie feels underdeveloped, the jokes aren't laugh worthy or clever for that matter and the treatment doesn't have a consistent tone or temper to make the experience thrilling. Not quite the Cruise comfort we were looking for I say!

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