thread for the movie JACK REACHER (cruise, pike, herzog, duvall, dir. christopher mcquarrie)

haven't seen the movie but these books are shamefully addictive. bought one at walgreens on vacation and ended up getting 2 more

i forgot to ask s1ocki why he didnt like this. its basically a slightly classier version of a golden age Steven Seagal movie, i guess that wouldnt be everyone's thing

after reading the book I don't see how this movie could fail at delivering at least the basics of the plot

plus the car he drives in the trailer looks badass

It's an episode of 'How Did This Get Made?' waiting to happen. Ideally guest-starring Paul F Tompkins as Werner Herzog.

haven't seen the movie but these books are shamefully addictive. bought one at walgreens on vacation and ended up getting 2 more

― ums (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, April 18, 2013 5:40 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

they are!

It's an episode of 'How Did This Get Made?' waiting to happen. Ideally guest-starring Paul F Tompkins as Werner Herzog.

― bizarro gazzara

OTM

Girl, trying to pick our hero up in a bar: "I'm Sandy."
Unimpressed Jack Reacher: "So was I."
Girl looks confused
"...last week. I was at the beach."

OH SNAP!

yeah terrible sub-dad-level jokes itm

Cigarette?
Yes, I know.

I barely knew her

hi cozen!

i barely her

lol i just saw this, it... wasnt good... but there were scenes where i kind of appreciated what they were trying to do i guess

― zero dark (s1ocki), Wednesday, January 16, 2013 6:31 AM (3 months ago) Bookmark

Yeah, it was overlong and boring with ludicrous dialogue but there were hints of the old-school, muscular action movie it wanted to be. The bit with the incompetent goons smashing up the bathroom while they tried to get Reacher definitely had the McQuarrie touch (shades of the fountain scene in Way of the Gun). They guy does have an amusingly sick imagination when he puts his mind to it

this was entertaining enough but not great, if it had been a little bit worse it would've been a seagal movie and if it had been a little bit better it would've been a mcqueen movie and either option would've been more entertaining i think. the mystery aspect was uncompelling and kinda obv. cruise was fine but i think the movie needed someone more perfect for the role and i'm not sure who that would be right now, any other plausible candidate would've added a note of humor to reacher i'm really glad he didn't have.

ive decided this is a total Dad Movie, i just need a test audience of Dads to find out for sure

you're gonna need a bigger Dad

yeah i think in the 70s you might've had a suitable actually conservative action star to really sell it, the gun fetish, the sexism, the disgust for civilian hypocrisy and corruption you get in some lifer military types really should've been more defined, if this movie was half the movie it should've been it would've made me twice as uncomfortable to watch it. you need a 40 year old eastwood as jack reacher for this to work.

it also really really felt like a backdoor pilot, the two hour sunday night movie they'd use to introduce the series esp at the end w/ the 'where do you go now' and you now rosamund pike's not gonna be in the actual series (there'll be a new version of her every week and good riddance here tbh) but duvall sure to be back in the noah beery on rockford files slot.

Doesn't touch First Blood as far as unwanted drifters.

if this movie was half the movie it should've been it would've made me twice as uncomfortable to watch it.

that makes sense actually, even while i was enjoying it i had this sense that it was afraid to follow the premise of the Reacher character to its logical conclusion. and the thing is that a lot of libs seemed to really hate this movie, its too unreconstructed, so they might as well have gone all the way with it anyway

i think that approach still could've somewhat worked with cruise, but he would've needed to be pushed outside his comfort zone a little more and i get the sense that these days he's even less of a risktaker now that his star power's on the wane. i dont know who out there today fits the bill of 40 y/o eastwood best, i suspect no one really

i usually like when movies arent set in LA or new york but there was something very low rent and direct to video about the pittsburgh setting here

that was one of my fav things about it, the low-key and ordinary settings. reacher goes to an AutoZone and talks to the girl from the bar in a drab backroom office; reacher goes to a very pittsburgh-looking drug house; reacher has a final showdown in an empty quarry with a few trailers. it's true to the character of the city and also to the vibe of everyday middle-american life. and its all nicely shot by caleb deschanel

99% of direct to video action movies are made in bulgaria or romania

haha that's true, i have a cinematographer friend who's always shooting sci-fi movies in romania

I am totally convinced this movie is playing at some kind of meta commentary on action movies and inevitability in genre. There is literally NOT ONE moment where Reacher appears to be in any actual danger - they establish this pretty quickly with one of the more silly "hero fights off a gang of goons, one goon at a time" streetfights ever staged. Cruise gets to say PREPOSTEROUS dialogue (see examples above) that couldn't possibly make anyone think he's cool/sexy/tough. But it all flies in this universe, and we get to have fun with some well-choreographed action and a movie star being extra movie-starry (even the casting of Cruise feels intentionally trollish to the genre).

I don't know; I'll admit it's half-baked but I think there's something here. Either way, it's a blast. Herzog is fantastic.

herzog was clearly on set for like 3 hours max total

i liked the herzog-folds-three-fingers-down special effect they used on his mangled hands. also richard jenkins as worst dad.

There is literally NOT ONE moment where Reacher appears to be in any actual danger

not true! the quarry shootout is my favorite sequence in the movie because of this. there's like, 4 guys with guns and he has to come up with a crazy plan and use positioning, cover & suppressive fire to just barely get through it by the skin of his teeth. it's tense and really atypical for a movie shootout, which most of the time are just comprised of shots of dudes firing at offscreen targets until the bad guys arbitrarily die, and in which the good guys never seem to actually be afraid of being hit by bullets. it's a methodical little mini-story of geography and danger and adapting on the fly (by the good & bad guys, refreshingly)

iirc i think herzog's fingers were actually an amputee standing behind him with his arm like poking through herzog's armpit

this was good but not as good as i'd hoped but not as bad as y'all said it was ok. last 20 mins a bit silly, first 100 mins quite silly. pike is rrrrowrrrr cruise's belly is strange.

iirc i think herzog's fingers were actually an amputee standing behind him with his arm like poking through herzog's armpit

Funnily enough that wasn't written as part of the character, Herzog just showed up on set with an amputee

Herzog wasn't very good in this

I watched this a couple of weekends ago

I was disappointed and surprised by how BORING it was. I dunno if it was lack of music or dialogue or something but there seemed to be whole sections where people just kinda wandered around not talking. I liked the way the car chases and action was filmed for the most part, it just seemed a bit more, idk, laid back? That's not the right word but almost all the intensity of the story was kind of gone from the movie I felt. Like, I couldn't put that book DOWN to find out how it all played out...but somehow the urgency was missing on screen.

Cruise was good inhabiting the personality of Reacher, in general, but when he really had to put the screws on and be threatening he just seemed more whiny and pleading than menacing

(spoilery stuff here. sorry but I gotta)

I didn't like the way they rearranged the story so that the lawyer finds out Banks had amnesia at the END. Made no sense to me at all.

I quite liked Herzog though.

i watched this on a plane, i liked it more than i thought i would

cruise was good, made me forget that he was tom cruise a lil', i thought he was wearing a prosthetic nose, i guess i never realized how big his schnozzer is, or maybe there are just a lot of shots of him in profile.

i guess what never meshed for me and added a touch of the bathos was herzog as the siberian prisoner of war who chewed off 4 of his fingers and went blind in on eye, all so that he could ... bilk public funds by buying out locally owned construction companies. that was kind of lol for me

when herzog's guys fuck up and they're in the car, and herzog calls them and lets them know they've fucked up, and the driver just goes 'fuck!' and you can clearly see his mangled and dismembered hand. that was lol

i was confused that you could get fingerprints off a coin. i woulda thought they are handled so much that all the fingerprint oils just cover the coin in a fine sheen

i guess what never meshed for me and added a touch of the bathos was herzog as the siberian prisoner of war who chewed off 4 of his fingers and went blind in on eye, all so that he could ... bilk public funds by buying out locally owned construction companies. that was kind of lol for me

hah yeah i kinda wish they played up that contrast more

i liked the shootout in the quarrie, good concept. what was that one movie about enemy snipers? enemy at the gates? never saw that.

i lol'd when duvall acts as a decoy and cruise quietly comes out and shoots two of them in the back. cut to duvall "HAHA SUCK IT!!!"

i was so put off by tom cruise's nose in this movie that i decided to do a google search

http://i.imgur.com/MjGh6Ua.png

cruise has always had a big broken nose. thats how he and dustin hoffman played bros!

nose bros

nos

Friendzose bose? Nose. Alose.

ive decided this is a total Dad Movie, i just need a test audience of Dads to find out for sure

― turds (Hungry4Ass), Wednesday, 8 May 2013 01:41 (4 months ago) Permalink

thumbs up from me

motivation of the herzog crew was a little murky to me but whatever. rosamund pike was good but there were scenes where her performance belonged in a romcom as an uptight lawyer learning to loosen up thanks to a handsome single blue collar dude.

thought this was pretty brutal for a PG-13 flick.

haha nice call on pike

mcquarrie has his flaws for sure but this has a lot of the elements more action films should make an effort to include, at least stylistically. and damn, the reach was so harsh on that decoy girl in the bar.

Also cruise's chest was uncanny valley weird.

he looks amazing for a 50-something but hes probably getting to the point where he should be judicious with the chest-baring.

I'm not sure why this movie was the one that made me first notice the schnozz. i was watching clips from mission impossible and damn it's pretty noticeable there too

my coworker who is consummate early 40s suburban dad thought this movie was the shit

We need .gifs of the bar gals making googley eyes at him.

(Cruise, not mh's coworker.)