Dear fellow admirers of Lee Child’s incomparable invention, all you need to understand about Reacher, the new tv show based on the novels, is that Reacher says nothing in the first six and a half seconds of the first episode. This is according to The Guardians.
For the uninformed, this is both a distinguishing quality of Jack Reacher, our former police officer, lone-wolf hero, and guy, as well as a repeated line in the book series about his ferociously honorable and nobly brutal escapades. The essence of man is silence. Or it would have been about Cruise’s intrinsic energy as a chirpy people-pleaser, and Reacher is waking up to the fact that a guy can be an island if he set his mind to it.
Finally, we have everything we need. A production company that knows that, like Harry Potter enthusiasts, we need to have the books – which have already been pinpoint accuracy to produce precisely what is required – to be properly and effortlessly transferred to the screen. And there’s Alan Ritchson, a man the size of a house who, until pushed upon to be otherwise, is approximately as expressive as a house.
He exudes all of Reacher’s calm and assurance. He emits the same tired patience that he emanates. And, somehow, he is capable of providing Reacher’s infrequent but crucial speeches about how he is going to smash the next seven people’s heads – and of these endowments, this one must have had the producers sobbing in gratitude.
The first installment in the Reacher series is centered on the first novel in the series, Killing Floor, as it should be. If you’ve seen Killing Floor, you already know exactly what happens – and this is a guarantee of joy, not a disappointment. But, for the uninformed, our colossal hero boards a bus in the tiny Georgia town of Margrave and is promptly detained on suspicion of murder.
He now has to stay in Margrave and show he wasn’t the one who did it. When he discovers who has been murdered, it becomes a personal mission for him to “hunt everyone guilty and kill every one of them.”
The Amazon version of Reacher is as well-made as the real one, and it tells the story as quickly as the guy himself can kill a Glock-wielding criminal. It’s a lot of fun, and it’ll come as a huge comfort to Reacher fans, who will undoubtedly make up the majority of watchers, at least initially. It will never fail to satisfy them, but it is also drawn broad enough as a crime drama to appeal to others. Pour yourself a cup of black coffee and relax.
