If characters are running from bad guys, it really does help to know who those characters are, to have a sense of their interaction, and to worry about their safety. Such are the advantages of getting a quality director to work in the action genre. This is a balance that Zwick enforces, to the movie’s benefit. Smulders is utterly believable as a career military woman, tough and no-nonsense, with the bearing of someone who has had to muscle her way through a male-run organization.Īs an actress and as a character, Smulders looks at Cruise as an equal she doesn’t act like a guest star in a Cruise universe. In a way that’s both satisfying and compelling, they seem evenly matched.
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Samantha ( Danika Yarosh) is loud and feral, seemingly raised by wolves, and she definitely wins the prize for Most Annoying Action Movie Daughter Since Maggie Grace in “Taken.”įortunately, the pairing of Cruise and Smulders is a good one. Thrown into the mix, and bordering on overkill, Reacher also has to protect a teenage girl who might very well be his own daughter. And he soon finds that everyone is against him - local law enforcement, teams of paid assassins and, of course, the entire United States government. He is in a maze, without a clue as to what is happening or why.
He’s operating only on a hunch that a woman he barely knows is innocent. “Never Go Back” presents Reacher with a monumental problem. Their scale and mechanical nature will not appeal to everyone, but those who appreciate them will enjoy the workings of the machinery here. Movies like this - action thrillers, involving nations and governments - are elaborate constructions. But when he arrives in town, he finds that the major is in a military prison, charged with espionage. They have developed a flirtatious relationship over the phone. Reacher heads back to his old military headquarters to meet a major ( Cobie Smulders, “How I Met Your Mother”) whom he has become interested in. The film tops this flashy opening with an assured and speedy plunge into story. What follows is a highly entertaining 90 seconds. He predicts that the pay phone on the wall will soon ring and that the sheriff himself will be led away in handcuffs. “In 90 seconds, two things are going to happen,” he says. A local sheriff is about to lead Reacher away in handcuffs, but Reacher is typically unfazed.
“Never Go Back” gets off to a great start. Edward Zwick (“Glory”) directed, and he also co-wrote the script, in collaboration with Richard Wenk (“The Equalizer”) and Marshall Herskovitz (“Love and Other Drugs,” “The Last Samurai”). And this time, there is a quality team behind the camera.