Jack Reacher, the movie, starts with a gripping premise:Normal people are living their everyday lives on a crisp sunny morning in an American city, when a shot rings out. A nicely dressed lady crumples to the ground, dead. Another shot rings out, another random person is dead. People start running in all directions, trying to escape from the shooter they can't see. The firing continues. Three more shots ring out. Three more people die.
The city is shocked. The authorities must solve this case, do something, show that they are in charge. The police try. But the ordinary police are clearly not up the the task. This special case requires a special kind of policeman...enter Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher...ta tan ta taaan.
Ultimately Jack Reacher does solve the case. On the way he saves damsels in distress, bashes up baddies, nails cruel Russian gangsters, and exposes corruption in high places. It's good in-flight entertainment, though I won't remember it a year from now.
What I found interesting though, was how despite the cheesy plot and predictable characters, Jack Reacher was so unlike a Bollywood movie. A Bollywood hero will typically step into the story, bash up a couple of baddies, and quickly tell the audience his back story: all about his kith and kin, about his struggles in his younger days, about how he became who is his.
Jack Reacher, however, has no back story. He walks into the movie, does his thing, and rides away into the sunset. We know nothing about his loving mother, his noble father, or the evil uncle who stole his khandaani haveli (family property). We don't see him bullied in high-school or picked on by a sadistic teacher, being rejected by his childhood sweetheart, or losing his best buddy in battle. We don't know what shaped him. He doesn't have a context, his people. He stands alone.
Does that make Jack Reacher quintessentially American? Tempting thought, but I don't think so. Superman and Batman are classical Bollywood characters, with their rich back stories about planet Krypton, and the misfortunes of the Wayne dynasty.
Maybe Jack Reacher is what the Western has become. The city is now the wild west, and clean-cut Tom Cruise is the new-look cowboy.
