Finally, a Reacher Who Measures Up
No offense, Tom!
It’s finally here!
I just watched three episodes of the new Reacher show on Amazon Prime Video, and speaking as a fan of the novels, it’s damn near perfect. Alan Ritchson, the new Jack Reacher, is the same height and build as the guy in the books — he looks like Wayne from Letterkenny halfway through transforming into the Hulk — and he nails the attitude.
Early on, we see this exchange between Reacher and a scumbag lawyer whose office he’s just talked his way into. Reacher needs information from the guy, and his methods are not subtle:
Better Call Saul? More like Better Call Some Pallbearers.
The tone, the unblinking gaze, the cold, almost trancelike joy at the prospect of doing physical violence to someone who deserves it… it’s like Reacher is stepping right off the page and putting his size 12 boot in your teeth. He’s an unstoppable force, and it’s fun to watch the bad guys try and fail to stop him. He’s nice to people (and animals) who are nice, and he’s a chilling, reptilian skull-crusher to everybody else. He doesn’t go around picking fights, but he doesn’t pretend not to enjoy ending them.
I’ve read all 537 books in the series,1 and I actually liked the first Jack Reacher movie even though Tom Cruise would need to clone himself and sit on his own shoulders to be as tall as Mr. Ritchson.2 But this is the best adaptation yet. I’ve got five more episodes to watch, and I’m trying to finish this newsletter so I can get back to ‘em. You’re welcome.
If you haven’t read the books, you don’t really need to. The whole exercise isn’t exactly an intellectual challenge. The show gets you up to speed on what Reacher is all about, and then it winds him up and watches him go.
#Reacher even has his own emoji now:
Perfect. The whole thing is just perfect.
Oh, and there’s a new episode of Peacemaker on HBO Max this week. I’m trying to picture those two in a fight. Christopher Smith would be a physical match for Reacher, but he’s much, much dumber. He’d probably still win out of sheer luck anyway. Plus he’s got Eagly.
James Gunn’s musical choices continue to be impeccable. Peacemaker is doing for hair metal what Guardians of the Galaxy did for AM radio pop. It’s so uncool, it’s cool. This latest episode had an Enuff Z’Nuff needle drop that made me LOL. I love those guys, and I love this stupid/awesome show.
Apparently the Winter Olympics just started? Let me know when they’re not being held in a communist hellhole, with concentration camps for ethnic minorities and a dystopian “social credit system” and labs that spew out deadly viruses to infect the whole world. Then maybe I’ll watch the luge or whatever.
You can call me NBC, because I’m Now Boycotting China.
Chuck Fina, and Nuck Fancy.
Some people actually want to keep living in fear of COVID-19. I can’t stop them, and they can’t make me join them:
It’s a good thing Glenn Youngkin isn’t a Democrat, or else KFILE and Daniel Dale and the rest of their “Facts First” comrades at CNN would’ve doxxed that woman already.
“Read the room.” Here’s the room she’s talking about:
Remember when the president of the United States was personally responsible for every violent crime committed in the whole country? That standard went away overnight, but it’ll be back the next time we elect a Republican.
I don’t have much to add about CNN’s hilariously awful week that I didn’t say yesterday, but everything I’m reading about it just makes me happier and happier. Jeff Zucker is a damn liar, his acolytes are unprofessional frauds who somehow think they’re the “good guys,” and the worse it gets for them all, the more I like it.
And then there’s this:
What Jeff Zucker does for a living has nothing to do with journalism. He’s a political operative for the Democratic Party. That’s why Dems are openly mourning his ouster. They don’t care that what he did to help Andrew Cuomo was completely unethical. Since when did that matter to a Democrat?
Zucker didn’t get fired because of an affair. He got fired because he might have just taken down CNN.
Update: My schadenboner is draining all the blood from my head and I need to lay down.
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It’s actually only 26 novels so far, but Lee Child keeps cranking out at least one a year. I started with Persuader, the seventh book in the series, which my dad loaned me. (It’s very much a series you can talk about with your dad.) This was back in the pre-Kindle days, when people read “books” printed on this stuff called “paper.” I devoured the whole thing in a weekend and then tracked down every other Reacher book I could find, and I’ve looked forward to every new one since.
The series is formulaic — self-described hobo Jack Reacher (no middle name) shows up in some city or town somewhere in America, he stumbles into some sort of ongoing criminal conspiracy, and then he uses his “Sherlock Holmes meets Rambo” skills to solve the mystery and kill all the bad guys and sometimes bang a hot lady, all while being smarter and tougher than everybody he meets — but formulas work for a reason. They’re great, page-turning reads, and this show really captures the spirit of the books.
Child and Ritchson have addressed the issue, and they diplomatically walk the line between “Tom Cruise is a legend and he really captured the character and we do not want to incur his wrath in any way” and “Yeah, the dude was just too short.” What was Lee Child supposed to say when the biggest-yet-smallest movie star in the world wanted to play his signature character, who is a literal giant? That’s a good problem to have.
Mr. Read the Room, Guvnah:
(1) doesn't quite get this whole freedom/choice/liberty thing
(2) clearly dons a crappy-ass mask or he wouldn't be in fear of contracting, well, anything
and
(3) is essentially saying "the reason you should wear a mask is because we are."
Not a persuasive argument.
That little tease of Reacher definitely makes me think they've captured the books better than the films did - kind of like Malkovich was much closer to Patricia Highsmith's Ripley during his turn than Matt Damon was in the first Ripley flick.
When I was books editor at a 90,000 circulation daily in San Diego County in the early '00s, it seemed like every new mystery or thriller author I interviewed on their book tour to town had some story about Lee Childs being supportive and kind. I mean, he writes more blurbs for new authors than any established author I can think of. Finally got to interview him by phone, and he was remarkably down to earth and funny. Told me a great story about how he was on a transAtlantic flight once, in first class of course, and as "Lee Childs" is a nom de plume, he travels under his own name to escape as much attention as possible. He sits down in his seat, and notices the guy next to him has a Jack Reacher novel in paperback on his fold-down tray. The book is face-down, so Lee Childs is looking at his own photo on the back of the book and thinking to himself that the guys is going to recognize him and want to chat all the way from London to New York. As he's accepting the fact that he won't get much rest for the next 6 hours, the guys sees him looking at the book (at his own photo on the back of the book!), flips it over, and asks, "You ever read this guy? I love this books!" Childs says, "You know, I've heard good things, but haven't gotten around to reading him yet." The guy raves a few more minutes about how great the Reacher novels are, but never puts two and two together - that the guy he is talking to in the seat next to him looks exactly like Lee Childs!
I've always kind of thought that at the end of the flight, he should have asked to look at the book, and then autographed it as he disembarked ... ;-)