Review "Reacher" - an outdated action movie from the 90s (and that's good)
The new film adaptation gave fans the canonical hero of the book series of the same name - a two-meter big man, who is better not to make him angry.
Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson), a former major in the American army and now a tramp, arrives in the provincial American town of Greyhound - by pure chance, some poor fellow was killed in cold blood and professionally in the same field at night. The local police think briefly and arrest Reacher. Then a harmless financier appears in the case, who admits that he took the blame on himself in order to save his family from the mafia. The hero does not seem to care about local squabbles, but he is intrigued by the number of people advising him not to mind his own business, and new corpses. However, something completely different stops Jack from leaving - he recognizes Joe's brother in the first one killed.
If the name Jack Reacher is familiar to you exclusively from the Tom Cruise films, then, alas, you don’t know anything about him. At least, that's what fans of Lee Child's book series say - a sort of fiction for airports about how a man rumpled by life gets into trouble, solves the most complicated and intricate cases, and then beautifully walks into the sunset over a mountain of corpses. Cruz seemed to fit the type of grated kalach who sighs heavily in a bar before punishing the hooligans who distract him from whiskey. However, Reacher in the books, to put it mildly, is different: not only physically - on paper he is a two-meter and hundred-kilogram hero, but also internally - Jack is much more empathic, funnier and generally more charismatic than the Hollywood incarnation. Therefore, if such a killing machine sighs in a bar at the sight of hooligans, it is only because they will never learn to behave decently. Finally, viewers have the opportunity to get to know the very real Reacher - performed by Alan Ritchson from the underrated comedy series about the students "Real Boys".
The new film adaptation is not a noble desire to throw a party on the fans' street; it's a fairly obvious, if belated, attempt to convert the success of the book series. Child's Reacher universe is growing with new novels and stories every year - obviously, it would be foolish not to try to film the series again, but in a convenient series format. Amazon Prime Video is the perfect place for such a project: it is no coincidence that in their catalog you can find "Bosch" and "Jack Ryan" - adaptations of other successful book series, the target audience of which is a man who loves conspiracies, justice and tough protagonists with their own code of rules. Most importantly, the platform management understands that modernizing these projects is an absolutely disastrous business. Unlike the recent relaunch of Walker, in which a broken Ranger has a trauma and inner demons that haunt him, there was no psychologism here: there is only a military secret that only enhances the effect of Reacher's coolness, and a couple of touching flashbacks from childhood.
The new series is generally a mothballed category B action movie from the 90s, which divided the foreign press for a reason. Many consider it bad manners to praise a series that does not even try to play by the rules of the modern industry: there are no complex narrative tricks, achievements in the representation of certain groups of people, award-winning acting performances or outstanding technical achievements. But there is an absolute minimum for success: lack of censorship, well-staged, but ridiculously edited action scenes with brutal murders, and an intricate, intriguing plot. And after all, this is more than enough to start binging the series and find out who is to blame for everything, while simultaneously enjoying the adventures of Reacher. He manages a lot in eight episodes: save a dog from a cruel owner, sleep with the only girl in history, brilliantly compose psychological portraits using deduction and induction, ironically scoff, break bones and kill enemies with everything that comes to hand. In a word, the perfect warrior from the militants of the 90s.
Prestige TV dramas are so obsessed with dark realism and seriousness that they have forgotten how much fun it is to follow the adventures of a hero who does not suffer from severe depression, identity crisis, impostor syndrome and just enjoys what is happening. As a result, he is not the only one who likes it: the audience enthusiastically accepted the first season, and Amazon immediately ordered a sequel. It’s too early to draw conclusions, but it’s worth noting that the streaming platform’s plan to compete with Netflix is working: quality wins over quantity, even if it’s an optional action movie for a couple of evenings.
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