'Jack Reacher' review: Tom Cruise self-parody

 Photo credit: MCT | Tom Cruise, left, is Reacher and Robert Duvall is Cash in "Jack Reacher," from Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions. (MCT)

By RAFER GUZMÁN  rafer.guzman@newsday.com
There's a fine line between macho wish fulfillment and delusional fantasy, and "Jack Reacher" crosses it. Reacher, played by Tom Cruise in tight jeans and sometimes a shirt, is always the smartest, strongest and fastest, and the only thing slowing him down are all the gorgeous women in his way. When five guys pick a fight with Reacher, he feels only sadness -- for the hellacious beating they're about to receive.

It all gets pretty insufferable, but "Jack Reacher" doesn't seem to realize this. Writer-director Christopher McQuarrie ("The Usual Suspects") is so caught up in his Mickey Spillane world that he can't tell when his movie starts tipping into self-parody. (Answer: Immediately.)
n this story, Reacher, a former military cop turned drifter, begins investigating the case of a Pittsburgh sniper accused of mowing down several innocent citizens. (Images of a nanny clutching a little girl may come too soon after the Sandy Hook shootings for some viewers; Paramount has excised some gunplay from the film's trailer.) Police Detective Emerson (David Oyelowo) already has his man, but Reacher isn't convinced. The suspect's idealistic attorney, Helen Rodin (an ill-used Rosamund Pike), hires Reacher to find out more.
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