Jack Reacher? Where?

I do not hate Tom Cruise. I loved his charisma in Top Gun, I was pleasantly surprised at his intensity in A Few Good Men (one of my favourite movies!), I have enjoyed the Mission Impossible series where he plays this agile smart agent quite satisfyingly, I even liked the grittiness he displayed in The Last Samurai. So I reiterate that I do not hate Tom Cruise. But I love Jack Reacher a bit too much to see it be so blandly portrayed. Tom Cruise may be gifted enough to play a lot of different roles. But a 6'5" tall guy weighing more than 200 pounds who can dish out cool one-liners in the wink of an eye isn't one of them. For that is what Jack Reacher, the character made famous in Lee Child's novels, is all about. He's an ex-military cop who has fallen off the grid and moves from one state to another, picking up battles along the way; battles that he does not intend to be a part of, but the bad guys make the mistake of pulling him in. An old passport, a toothbrush, some cash and the clothes on him, are all that he usually walks around with. Tom Cruise is too cute to appear as such a vagabond. A Mickey Rourke would have been perfect, a Clive Owen or a Liam Neeson would have lit the screen on fire in such a role, a Hugh Jackman would have made those one-liners his own... heck, even an ageing Clint Eastwood would have been better suited to play Jack Reacher. But not a Tom Cruise. 

Look at the above image for instance. It doesn't scare you, it doesn't make you wonder 'oooh... he is out of his car! What's he gonna do?'. All you think is... 'Hey, there's Tom Cruise!' Aargghh! The movie Jack Reacher ain't that bad, to be fair. It's just not good enough, considering the source material it has been taken from. Tom Cruise tries his best. But the direction is way too simplistic and the movie moves in an old-fashioned liner manner, losing its plot here and there as it tries to get back on the rails (What's with the 'eat your fingers' scene?). The depth of the title character is never studied in detail, nor does the mystery around him resonate through the story as it does in the novels. Jack Reacher could have been much more, the beginning of a franchise maybe. But with a partly $15 million collected in US during the first weekend, the potential of a series appears lost (unless some crazy fans around the globe decide they cannot get enough of Mr. Cruise). Maybe a few years later, someone would clean the slate, cast a guy that fits the broad shoes of Reacher and relaunch the series. Until then, as we bid the year goodbye, we bid goodbye to Mr. Reacher as well.