DVD REVIEWS

Jack Reacher

(out of four) Tom Cruise plays a vigilante antihero drawn from a novel series by the author Lee Child, books so pulpy they almost leave juice stains on the pages.

Jack Reacher is an ex-cop, ex-military hard nut who travels by bus around America, violently defending the weak and innocent against the strong and culpable.

Blunt as a fist (his preferred weapon) and resistant to romance, Reacher is also something of a phantom, erasing his tracks and severing personal ties.

The story by writer/director Christopher McQuarrie is about bringing a crazed sniper to justice, albeit a “justice” not concerned with the civility of law.

Cruise makes a convincing Reacher, despite standing a good nine inches shorter than the man’s 6-foot-5 height in the novel series.

More important, Cruise stands and delivers, making you believe that he can take on five guys in a parking-lot brawl while barely cracking a sweat. The film bloats at times, but Cruise doesn’t.

Extras include a cast and crew commentary and several making-of featurettes. Upstream Color Like his Sundance-winning 2004 debut Primer, Shane Carruth’s new film has elements of sci-fi but intentions far beyond it.

Amy Seimetz and Carruth play victims of a bio-terror plot that leaves them near death, utterly confused and their bank accounts drained. There’s more, much more. There’s emphasis on Thoreau’s book Walden and Civil Disobedience that hints at the film’s man/nature life cycle, and also recurring symbols (worms, pigs, orchids, circles and colours) that will fascinate book scholars and semioticians.

Meanings are multiple, debatable and ultimately pointless. What impresses about is Carruth’s confident navigation of this fast river of ideas, along with emphatic acting, vivid cinematography, ace editing and a score (also by Carruth) that’s at once triumphal and mournful. Peter Howell