Having watched, with great enjoyment if a bit of cringing at its violence, the first season of “Reacher” on Amazon Prime, I fully understand why it has been such a hit.
Reacher is the creation of prolific British author Lee Child, who has written more than 25 novels featuring Jack Reacher, an ex-military policeman, trained sniper, crack investigator and determined loner. These books have collectively sold more than100 million copies.
The popularity of these books — having read nearly a dozen, I find them artful and forceful — has naturally led to screens. There have been two movies, both starring Tom Cruise. He is, as you surely know, a movie star of the brightest and most popular tier, but this casting choice infuriated many of the character’s literary fans.
Cruise has described Reacher as “sort of a Dirty Harry, a James Bond, a Josey Wales,” but he is comparatively diminutive to the “real” thing, standing 5 feet, 7 inches tall, whereas Reacher is 6 feet, 5 inches. And so did many readers carp and complain.
That has ever been. Nelson Algren was displeased by Frank Sinatra portraying his character Frankie Machine in “The Man with the Golden Arm.” And was anybody pleased with Leonardo DiCaprio as the title character of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”? Charlton Heston as Moses? Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra? One can fashion an endless such list, since many people — both authors and readers — form clear images of characters on the page.
My colleague, critic Michael Phillips, reviewed both Cruise-as-Reacher films and was not troubled by the actor’s physique. He was, however, troubled by the films.
Taking the measure of 2012′s “Jack Reacher,” to which he awarded two-and-a-half stars, Phillips wrote in part, that it works “sleekly and well” but that it was not “an easy movie to enjoy … in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school killings and the 28 dead.”
In 2016 Phillips reviewed “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.” In giving the film a paltry two stars, he wrote that Reacher was a person of “superhuman killing skills and a keen eye for justice.” He also noted that the film’s “violence grows increasingly wearying.”
Amazon’s streaming adaptation of the book stars Alan Ritchson, an actor with a modest resume (a role on the CW series “Smallville” and three seasons as the crime-fighting Hawk on HBO’s “Titans” series) but considerable size and muscled bulk at over 6 feet tall. Over eight episodes and based on the first Reacher novel, 1997′s “The Killing Floor,” the new show has Reacher become involved in a wicked conspiracy after he is arrested in small-town Georgia for a crime he didn’t commit.
It premiered in early February and reviews have been wildly favorable. John Powers, the critic-at-large for NPR’s “Fresh Air with Terry Gross,” focused his review on the series’ star, writing that Ritchson has “abs the size of Evian bottles” and that his “deadpan line-readings sometimes made me think of early Clint Eastwood, (giving) Reacher the intimidating, man-mountain presence missing from the movie version played by bantamweight Tom Cruise. Ritchson’s Reacher could use Cruise’s as a sock puppet.”
Harsh, perhaps, but on target. Citing the fact that “Reacher” was one of its top five most watched shows of all time, Amazon took only three days to announce a second season, also to star Ritchson and be helmed by writer/producer/showrunner Nick Santora. Child was an executive producer and intimately involved, as he will be for Season 2, saying of the announcement, “This is very exciting news, and I can’t wait to get started.”
It is unknown at this point which of the other Reacher novels is to be brought to screen. But Ritchsonwill continue what must be a serious workout routine, in order to maintain what one critic called “biceps the size of Serrano hams.” New supporting characters will be cast.
And Child will keep writing. In 2020 he announced that he had signed a four-book deal for more of Jack Reacher. He collaborates with his younger brother Andrew Grant. The first of these books, “The Sentinel” and “Better Off Dead,” were published in 2021, using the names Lee Child and Andrew Child.
It’s a fine pairing and they are good novels, which is what I expected, having read many of Andrew’s previous books. Plus, Iknew him when he and his talented writer wife, Tasha Alexander, lived in Chicago for a time a few years ago.
Will any of the brothers’ books make it to the screen? You never know.
Perhaps all writers and readers and viewers might be served by what Scott Turow, Chicago’s bestselling author who has some of his books adapted for film, once said, “I really believe that the movie will never be as good as the book, both because the book goes on longer — a movie is basically an abridgment of a book — and because books are internal. But they are incredibly powerful. The visual format is, you know, amazing.”
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