‘Reacher’: Alan Ritchson Gives Lee Child’s Hero Brains and Lots of Brawn

Alci Rengifo

Every once in a while we need shows like Amazon’s “Reacher,” featuring a hero born with mental powers that let him determine someone’s height, weight and place of birth from a simple piece of lint. With the wrong lead none of this would work, but the studio has done well by casting Alan Ritchson as the new incarnation of do-it-all action hero Jack Reacher, first introduced through the popular novels by Lee Child. Viewers may recall Tom Cruise played the role in two movies, the first of which was a decent popcorn ride. With Ritchson at the forefront, this new “Reacher” is about throwback TV fun, tossing most logic out the window while building lots of silly energy centered around the hero busting heads all over town.

It all begins as a small-town mystery. Reacher wanders into a diner in Margrave, Georgia, which is the kind of town where the locals instantly sense the presence of an outsider. Before he can take a bite of his peach pie, Reacher is surrounded by cops who put him in zip tie handcuffs (normal handcuffs are too small). It turns out a body has been found down the road, with broken bones and shot. Reacher claims he was just strolling through because he wanted to learn about blues singer Blind Blake. He’s soon thrown into a cell with Hubble (Marc Bendavid), a local whose name was found at the bottom of the victim’s shoe. Hubble quickly confesses when he sees a mysterious car parked outside of his house. On the case are the town’s chief investigator, Finlay (Michael Goodwin) and officer Roscoe (Willa Fitzgerald). They obviously don’t know if they can trust anything Reacher or Hubble are claiming. For safekeeping both men are sent to a nearby prison where some goons try to kill them. Something bigger is afoot. Once the two men are released Hubble goes missing, the chief of police is brutally murdered, and Reacher is pulled into the case by a personal tragedy. He and Roscoe are soon on the hunt for the killer, and a possible wider plot.

Showrunner Nick Santora, who has been a writer on other action romps, like “The Punisher,” wants to find a balance in “Reacher” between popcorn entertainment and mind puzzles plucked from a paperback. This franchise has always basked in exaggerations. We all remember Werner Herzog in the Tom Cruise “Jack Reacher” playing a Russian villain describing eating his own fingers in a freezing jail. In that same spirit, “Reacher” features absurd exposition dialogue where Reacher can look Finlay up and down, instantly determining the guy is a former smoker who was left by his wife. While scouting the murder scene Reacher can gaze at the night sky and make important discoveries by knowing where the Moon would have been positioned when the crime occurred. Naturally his file reveals he’s former military police with many, many medals accumulated from heroic exploits in the Middle East and Panama. No car is out of his reach, no shoeprint beyond the laser pinpointing of his eyes. Don’t even think of intimidating him with a snarky remark. He can take down a whole shower room of prison thugs or break every hand of some paid off punks surrounding his hotel room. You can’t say he doesn’t warn you, because Reacher is one of those badasses who will describe exactly what he will do to you before using his massive fists.

Ritchson is so much fun to watch purposefully playing a stereotypical tough guy that we can forgive the plot for being continuously entangled with itself. A fault in the writing is that too much is described instead of shown. The murder that kicks off the whole story is never seen in the early episodes, so we’re trying to figure out who was killed and where. When Reacher makes a shocking discovery at the town morgue that nearly shatters him emotionally, it’s never clear how it connects to the initial death everyone is trying to solve. Lots of typical small-town characters we can’t trust pop up, like the shady mayor Teale (Bruce McGill), equipped with a diamond-studded cane, ominously asking Reacher if he would leave his contact information at the police station. There are meetings in dark backroads where Reacher discovers there are also mysterious South Americans with military training involved in the scheme, most likely hired out by some malevolent interests in small Margrave. 

“Reacher” does throw in a bit of essential popcorn cheesiness with Roscoe, who is the only attractive cop in town and is thus required to take Reacher out for beers and dance to Patsy Cline. He’s a virtuous action hero however, so the first night they sleep half-naked in the same hotel room due to a storm, nothing happens except revelatory conversation about their childhoods. Midway through the season more will happen, of course. None of this is unpredictable or that original, what works is how “Reacher” delivers what it promises as a TV entertainment in the style of old-school muscled adventures. There’s also less misogyny this time around, with Reacher being more of a monotone-voiced investigating machine who might pound in a few bad guys and treats everyone else with nice dinner table manners. Few minutes of “Reacher” can be taken too seriously, which is probably the point. It defines escapism in the purest sense.

“Reacher” season one begins streaming Feb. 4 on Amazon Prime Video.