Jean-Claude Van Damme, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Steven Seagal, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris. The cinema of the 80s and 90s was reliable. If one of these actors starred in an action film, the viewer knew that hosts would be handed out like bread and with plots designed to show off the blows, explosions and iconic phrases, often bordering on the absurd (or being downright ridiculous without blushing). , which validated that virile assertiveness). And if anyone is feeling nostalgic for this sense of violence, masculinity, brazenness and iconicity, you're in luck: Reacher, which returns this Friday, is exactly that cinematic spirit brought to the present.
The first season was one of the surprises of 2022. Nick Santora adapted the prolific character of Lee Child, already adapted in movie theaters with a less convincing Tom Cruise, with audience data that, according to Amazon Prime Video, were enviable. Jack Reacher, here played by a closet named Alan Ritchson, is a former police officer in the United States armed forces who lives like a homeless man: he carries a suitcase on his back, gets around by public transportation or hitchhiking, and helps those he meets. by the way.
The second season, after introducing a corpse (a body is dropped from a helicopter in the middle of a forest), only needs one additional scene to fascinate and fall in love with its captive audience. Reacher buys clothes at a thrift store when he is informed that he cannot pay by card. When he goes to the ATM, he sees that the person in front of him is trembling. She is being robbed and her son is in the car with the armed criminal. Reacher barely needs thirty seconds to resolve the situation, with more ease than he takes money from the ATM, breaking the window glass, leaving the criminal unconscious and returning to the store to finish the transaction.
There are two options. Wondering how Nick Santora can have so little shame in reintroducing the character to us in such a direct, casual way, with jokes about how he already has the new bloody jacket. The other, of course, is to give thanks for understanding this action vehicle as pure entertainment, which must offer a minimum: development of the main plot, recurring action scenes, demonstrations of manhood left and right but, in this case, without being offensive towards those who distance themselves from this model of predominant masculinity in the series.
If in the first season he had found himself in Margrave, a town where he worked with the local authorities to put an end to a criminal network related to the disappearance of his brother, now the case affects his former military brigade. Reacher discovers that they are being killed one by one and, with the help of old acquaintances not yet eliminated, tries to discover why they are being killed and who is behind the maneuver.
Contrary to what it might seem due to its success, Reacher is not an Amazon bet with a spendthrift spirit. Santora, with Sam Hill as the main director, has a conventional television narrative, without visual fuss, which works as a matter of craft. The characters and performances are routine and Ritchson has expressiveness problems but, as a wardrobe that throws punches, he fits perfectly. The management does not stand out for ideas but understands the need to find scenarios for fights so that they can be anticipated and seen. And, with a predictable but constant development of conspiracies and character dynamics, it entertains while waiting for the next great moment of that almost superhuman and above all heroic Reacher.
You couldn't ask for more from Reacher, since its secret is also in its accessible ordinariness. For this reason he also works in the second season. In the trailer, by the way, you can see the scene so convincing.
