Chilling film delivers a dose of darkness

Movie based on successful novels clearly the beginning of a series of flicks.

“Jack Reacher” opens with a chilling scene: A sniper drives to a parking garage, sets up a gun with a scope and begins to shoot people who are walking below. He kills five people, including a woman who accompanies a small girl.

A suspect is quickly arrested, but we know that he’s not the guilty party. We’ve seen the face of the real sniper. And the suspect refuses to answer police questions. He just scrawls a note on a pad: “Get Jack Reacher.”

So begins a holiday movie that’s clearly meant to be the beginning of a franchise, with Tom Cruise starring as Reacher, a former military investigator who lives off the grid and has a brutal knack for solving crimes and killing those responsible. It’s based on the thriller “One Shot,” one in a series by Lee Childs that features Jack Reacher.

But the release of the movie is problematic, in part because it’s coming shortly after the school shooting in Newtown, Conn. Paramount decided to