Summary
Jack Reacher. No middle name. He’s been a staple of thriller fiction for decades. Now he hits the small screen and it can barely contain him.
If your vision of Jack Reacher has been formulated by the Tom Cruise movies, you need to aim about half a foot higher. A couple of years ago, I was looking for a new reading project and Lee Child’s Reacher series came to mind. It began as the kind of book you could pick up, enjoy yourself for a day or two, and return to reality. Reacher became a constant companion of a character, a reliable formula that was built for binge television.
So, after 26 novels, dozens of shorts stories and filmed versions of the ninth and eighteenth books in the series, Amazon’s REACHER goes back to the beginning with a fairly faithful adaptation of 1997’s Killing Floor, Child’s first Reacher novel. As with the source material, Reacher (Alan Ritchson) rolls up on Margrave, Georgia with the intent of enjoying some blues history and eating some pie. He’s quickly arrested for a grisly murder and pulled into a tangled web.
Reacher meets Finlay (Malcolm Goodwin), the chief of detectives, and Roscoe (Willa Fitzgerald), a female officer who believes Reacher is innocent. As more bodies turn up, former military cop Reacher and his new allies uncover a conspiracy that is bigger than all of them and more personal than they could possibly imagine.
There’s a moment early on in the first episode of REACHER that is a dramatic departure from the source material. Creator Nick Santora has incorporated elements of Reacher’s past into the narrative, with repeated flashbacks to his childhood. Readers will know that these elements are judiciously peppered through the dozens of novels, retaining Reacher’s status as an enigmatic figure and an almost superhuman everyman. Yet the fans have very little to worry about, as the show wisely uses these moments to both humanise the lead and keep him relatable for the more dramatic moments. In every other way, this is as faithful an adaptation as you are likely to find, complete with winking references to the books.
Which makes the casting of Alan Ritchson all the more inspired. Previously known for comic book heroes Raphael and Hank Hall/Hawk in TMNT and Titans respectively, the man mountain physically suits the part while effortlessly bringing the intrinsic and often dry sense of humour of the books to the fore. (Hot tip: listen to Jeff Harding’s audiobook readings for an especially wry and fun interpretation of the material). After all, this is a character who has been variously described in print as having hands the size of turkeys and/or dinner plates.
Similarly, Goodwin may be used to playing cop roles (from iZombie to FBI), but here he brings a lighter touch to the uptight cop trope. Fitzgerald turns in a star-making role, and it would be criminal if she doesn’t get her own series after this.
Presented as a limited series of eight episodes, REACHER keeps the flow running tight and on track. Almost every episode ends with a cliffhanger, either presenting us with new information or leaving a character in peril. The series, shot in and around Ontario despite the Georgia setting, makes full use of the locales. Action is taught and well executed, with that Amazon coin blurring the lines between the small screen and theatres.
In fact, it’s really hard to imagine a Jack Reacher story done any better than this. Even though the series wraps up its story by the time the last episode rolls around, the reliably formulaic nature of the novels means that this could happily be repeated in season blocks. Either way, Prime Video have found themselves with a winning series here, one that you will binge as fast as several Georgia peach pies. That’s for damn sure.
2022 | US | DIRECTORS: Thomas Vincent, Sam Hill, Stephen Surjik, Christine Moore, Norberto Barba, Omar Madha, Lin Oeding, M.J. Bassett | WRITERS: Lee Child, Cait Duffy, Nick Santora (creator), Aadrita Mukerji, Scott Sullivan | CAST: Alan Ritchson, Malcolm Goodwin, Willa Fitzgerald, Chris Webster, Bruce McGill, Maria Sten, Hugh Thompson | DISTRIBUTOR: Amazon Prime Video | EPISODES: 8
