The Reel Rejects - JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK (2016) IS UNDERRATED?! MOVIE REVIEW!!

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Starting point is 00:00:47 We all need someone to make us believe. Hashtag, you got this. This week's videos are sponsored by Price Picks, the easy-to-use fantasy sports betting app. More on them in just a bit. Thank you, Rejects. So let's swing into action. Let's go back to never go back.

Starting point is 00:01:05 One last back. Let's go. Jack Hitcher. Who the hell will pick up a hitchhiker these days? I know. Why would you be stupid to do that? If he was like two and a half feet taller, I would pick him up. Ain't that the first.

Starting point is 00:01:28 fucking truth yeah yeah yeah yeah all right oh my god we did it we did it we went back we did what we were never supposed to do ain't that the truth that the truth oh one second one second all right well gang we just watched jack reacher never go back and i want to say thank you to the first time i was seen him but the paramount plus is playing images of this show called mob landing. This looks pretty cool from just the images. It does. Yeah, this is some striking stuff. I'm like, damn, I kind of want to watch this show. I kind of want to join the mob now.

Starting point is 00:02:05 It's a guy at Ritchie show? Cool. Yeah. But Tom Hardy. And Pierce Brosnan. It's streaming now. Okay. Sweet. Good to know. Well, we're just going to watch that during the review. Well, we watched Jack Richard and Ever Go Back, which was 12 minutes shorter than the first movie.

Starting point is 00:02:20 That I've just learned this fact now. And it fell longer. This is a fascinating experience to go back to because there is a certain amount where you are like, oh, yeah, you know, actually, this is better than I remember. But there are some ways in which you're like, but I understand why this is not the like solidification of this franchise. I think it's a good movie to walk into with certain expectations. Again, Prepper, first off, thanks right now on these highlights. Don't want to forget to say that.

Starting point is 00:02:53 it's one of those films where in our perspective in my POV maybe not yours they're not it is probably stronger when you have some expect some lowered expectations going in and I think I forgot that you had watched it too when it first came out and I didn't like it very much at all the first time I watched it and I don't remember what specifically it was about it because i forgot about all this daughter shit this is i remember coby smolders being in it but i don't remember any of the daughter stuff however i'll say that the first hour of this especially was so much better than i expect than i remembered it being everything prior to new or the second it's pretty much like two chunks before new orleans and after new orleans and everything

Starting point is 00:03:45 before new orleans i didn't find half bad and i particularly kind of wished we got a little bit of the approach that jack reacher to that tom cruz took to jack reacher applied in the first movie where he's like significantly more stoic in this one yeah to the point where there are certain times in the last half of him going is he just tired i know it's just tired like checked out of this because the first hour i thought it was very intentional and then there's other moments in the last hour where i but by the time it gets to the closing moments i do think it is a bit of a he's a little empty he's a little sad he's a little lonely and this was his moment to experience like what it might be like to have a family in its own weird jack reach her way right that's not the military family

Starting point is 00:04:35 but here's a woman here's a kid and now it's a chance to play dad for a little bit on this trip and provide some of that heart so i get why he would re-team with edwards wick who did last samurai which is one of his more heartfelt dramatic roles something tom cruise hasn't done in quite a while and i think i understand wanting to hire him to be able to provide some of that for this experience like let's do something very different where the first one's very much a film noir a little bit colder in this small town he's a little bit more distant even though he's more tom cruzie in the first one yeah he's more kept at a distance he's more mysterious and here there's like no mystery to him at all like zero yeah

Starting point is 00:05:21 and he he he weird but weirdly you feel like you kind of I don't know even there's like so much more distant in terms of his stoicism the way you have the Kobe smallers and the daughter play off of him feels like you kind of connect with him a little bit more yeah yeah that's probably the simplest way of putting it humanizes him a little bit more um and yeah like I said we've been through I think what also helps is we've been through three seasons of reach her in one season we weren't big fans of Yeah. And so we know Reacher is not like a perfect world. And Jack Reacher won. It was very different than the shows in a lot of ways. And the show in a lot of ways. And so this to me is just like another version of a Jack Reacher. Because every season of Reacher show feels different. Yeah. And the movies don't feel the same to each other either. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:06:15 And I imagine Tom Cruise was going for that original plan that he had a Mission Impossible before Chris McCory just became the main director but there was a time and mission impossible where every single one of them felt completely different and the constant was tom cruise and maybe ving rames and now i think that was the approach they were going for this but perhaps it just didn't click because i think it's a fine piece of of tell of that i keep going like an installment of reachers it's good tv it's good tv decent television yeah yeah yeah but there is there is such a unique voice to the movie and unique atmosphere and style where none of that carries over and nor do something that feels unique this kind of feels that they're going for what a lot of

Starting point is 00:07:04 other action suspense movies do already yeah and instead of having it it doesn't have its own unique voice no granted still serviceable yet it's it serves it gets the job done but even in the action realm the action none of the action is any other than like a couple of violent blow moments. Yeah. There's no action scene. There's no particular set piece where you're like, oh, but it has the fill in the blank. It has the cage fight where those five guys attack, you know, it's like there's nothing.

Starting point is 00:07:34 Yeah, it's like very standout or particularly creative. And even, you know, the New Orleans, you know, Halloween time setting is like a neat piece of wallpaper, but like especially the way that fight ultimately goes down. like you're pretty removed from that and it's not really there's no like oh man he's got to get into costume to freaking hide out or something like that or you know there are a lot of things i think they could have taken slightly better advantage of it's odd because yeah like i remember the the thing i remember the association i formed originally was like oh that was not good but like kobe smolders kind of carried the movie and and yeah this time was like way more rounded but i think it does suffer from a lack of like

Starting point is 00:08:20 rhythm like I felt like the pacing was kind of there's a point at which it kind of got monotonous it's the first time this unlike the last one this one felt like they truncated a book yes

Starting point is 00:08:34 yeah it has this thing where you're going through events pretty quickly but it doesn't feel all that like momentous or propulsive at times like they're rampant yeah and it's like you know we have to do a certain amount of like physical combat to get to the end of the story and there comes a certain point where you're sort of you know just kind of watching and waiting for different

Starting point is 00:08:58 beats to come around so that we can finally get to the reveal and I think that's another place the movie suffers is like the mystery at hand feels a bit I almost feel like run of the mill is not the right word because like there's some like you know every reacher story is a crime procedural to some degree this is well-trod and dramatic entertainment territory. So, you know, we're always dealing with shady, you know, black ops guys and military agents and, you know, different, well-connected, shady business folk and whatnot. But there's, yeah, there's something about, like, I think they had a lot of the pieces. And this carried over, like, the sense of casting, especially with, like, the head goon guy. Like, at first when I saw him,

Starting point is 00:09:41 I was like, oh, this guy's not going to be as stand out as like Johnny Courtney wasn't the first one. But by, you know, a few scenes of his end, you know, he was. was pretty gripping. Are you standoutish? Yeah. And even the girl who, you know, could be the daughter, could not be the daughter. I liked her. I liked Kobe Smolders.

Starting point is 00:09:57 Aldous Hodge for his, you know, presence. But even that, like, there was, there was a constant feeling of like, I would love a little bit more and I would love, yeah, a sense of rhythm and a sense of flavor. And I thought that it's like the first movie is so striking and so composed and you have this quality where you're like, this is way better than I expected it. to be and this one feels more like just like a straightforward adaptation of an airport novel which is yeah it's weird it's like in hindsight and then experiencing it with fresh eyes you're like yeah this is all right it's decent um but i feel like it's not probably the outcome

Starting point is 00:10:37 that they wanted and i'm surprised because like you know i edwards wick is not a director who i know the full filmography of like intimately but i like Last Samurai has a stronger sense of tone and a more striking sense of direction whereas like this felt like it could have kind of been directed by anybody and yeah like yeah just kind of everything about it is sort of like yeah it's got a lot of the reacher stuff

Starting point is 00:11:04 just in more generic packaging and yeah with a tone that's like moving along and it's fine and it's not like you know really slow and dragging but it's also not like really gripping to the point where I'm just like effortlessly pulled in throughout it.

Starting point is 00:11:21 Whoa. I think it's really affected his directing career. Crazy. Because yeah, he did last samurai. I was like the, I mean, okay. Blood diamond. Oh, he did glory. Oh, shit.

Starting point is 00:11:32 Oh, snaparino. Glory. A fall. Courage under fire. The siege. Okay. And last samurai. Blood diamond is a great one.

Starting point is 00:11:42 Defiance. I haven't seen that, but that's a, no people really like that movie. They did Jack Richard and ever to go back. And then he's only done like a couple of, he only did a couple of other movies after that that haven't gone. And what's trial by fire? Jack O'Connell, Laura Dern.

Starting point is 00:12:00 I don't even know what this is. And another movie called The Way, it's an episode of television. It's not even a movie. He only did one movie after that. I think this really kind of mess his career up in some way. That's wild. I wonder what this cost.

Starting point is 00:12:11 Or like, broke him in some way. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, because. Even what he has upcoming is a TV show. Whoa, what happened? I wonder, I would be very fascinated to know. I would also wonder, because, like, at the time in his career in which Tom Cruise would be making the last samurai, certainly he's got a lot of clout, I'm sure, to throw around. But that's also, I feel like slightly maybe pre the phase where Tom Cruise, like, if he's on a movie, he has, like, all the control.

Starting point is 00:12:42 So I don't know. Maybe it was, like, figuring that out or something like that. Like, maybe there was something in the mixture of their sensibilities that flattened this out a little bit? So, it only cost about $60 million. Whoops. Yeah. Earned $58 million in the U.S. And internationally, $100 million.

Starting point is 00:13:02 Oh, yeah. I mean, they didn't do great. No, no, I doubt they made their money back. Yeah. Yeah, it's not good. It's weird. Yeah, it's one of those movies where they have a lot of, good parts assembled a lot of interesting casting choices and stuff like that and yeah a lot of good scenes and a lot of hints at stuff and as much as like oh give the stoic action guy a daughter figure is a trope like i like that's what i would do like i like the stuff like that and yeah it's like on the one hand i could imagine a version of this movie that does have like a certain amount of like touching character elements with you know all the cool badass stuff or a version where it is like a little

Starting point is 00:13:45 little bit cheesier but like more pronouncedly so and that could be you know as much as that's not the quintessential flavor of jack reacher you know you could still find a fun movie out of that or something that at least within its own confines feels unified and you know grabs you or whatever i don't think that it's it's a i don't know i'm getting distracted about what i see on screen here well there's i don't i feel like while tom cruises the personality of jack reacher shows the closest we got to seeing like a true who makes jack reacher jack reacher was the scene in the breakout yeah when he when he sure he gets an action scene everybody takes them all on but the part of that is the a big part what makes jack reacher jack reacher is his hyper intelligence and as hyper intelligence is not

Starting point is 00:14:38 really uh one of his instruments in this movie didn't feel like a big part of a big mystery really like there is a convoluted you know military crime plot but even that felt kind of deta like it's he behaves more like reacher and yet i felt way more out of all the reacher things we've seen like i was watching action guy do action stuff yeah until the conclusion yeah that's what i mean yeah like he gets like a moment here there like oh he sees he spots the guys in the plane and he's determining him by the hair cut or whatever yeah like fun fun little stuff like that and In the first 45 minutes, they have this thing that does not continue to carry through where you go into Jack Reacher vision mode of how he sees a crime.

Starting point is 00:15:21 That choice, yeah. And they just totally drop it. I think there's like a clear shift in the last half of this where it suddenly becomes like a very different movie and a way that doesn't feel like a very different movie. But it becomes more Kobe Smolder's POV, which isn't a bad idea. They should give her Detecto Vision too, though. I know right. like pink and gauzy because she's a woman i think the movie lacks personality and that's his biggest

Starting point is 00:15:47 misfire is it's there's like i said there's no real voice behind the direction of it that being said if you isolate some stuff i think colby smoulders is great as we were talking during it that we kind of wish maria hill was a little bit more like this totally and i think her chemistry too with tom cruise is pretty solid i like their scenes together i like i like the individual of rosam and pike more in terms of like what that does for the narrative of that story yeah i enjoy watching colby smoulders more though their chemistry and their chemistry is better yeah and to i mean different kind of character but like she really apparently came to play and like came to hang and like really seemed like she put in the work to look you know believable next to again tom cruise who we know

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Starting point is 00:17:55 You get $50 instantly after playing your first $5 light up. Price picks, run your game. It's also one of those movies where there was, there were points where it stopped feeling, like I was in the world of a movie and more like I was watching people run around and I think literally

Starting point is 00:18:14 every time they would cut to and now they're running did feel it was an element of the movie that did start to feel like a bit of a meme in a way where you're like oh the tone is not fully coalescing to make this as like cool

Starting point is 00:18:31 and thrilling as you want it to be I'm just kind of you know focused on the fact that they're like jogging and it's Tom Cruise yeah and and there are elements of like the voyeuristic cinematography that enhance some of those paranoid aspects of the movie but especially in those scenes it kind of did start to feel like oh they just sort of spy it on tom cruise when he went out for a jog or something like that's about it yeah that's about it yeah they span a lot of locations and the editing is kind of all over the

Starting point is 00:18:57 place in this one it's very much like there's so many scenes in here and there's no real like scene work scenes outside of a few moments where the one that surprised me that I didn't expect to connect to, but ended up, it's weirdly coming back to me now that some of the daughter stuff. I think I didn't like it at first. I feel like, I think it's not starting to come back to my brain. And, but when we first, as I was coming out of my mouth, I was like, wait a minute, I think I'm starting to remember the emotion I felt about that. And I think I didn't, I don't remember enjoying it. I think I, I mean, I enjoyed it this time around though. And like, I even like the final scene. Like, the attempt around it, I really like the attempt to it.

Starting point is 00:19:38 where jack we're going to go the last one was he's mysterious this time it's going to be a little bit more personal but we're not going to get too personal because we don't want to like ruin any of that part of the appeal like a james bond and a jack reachers you don't want to know them too well and this one i think was that attempt at doing that and perhaps like when tom cruise you think about some of these behind the scenes production stuff where tom cruise applied that methodology for mission impossible three we go we're really going to get you to know Ethan Hunt this time you know really you need to know that that personal side to him and you can see some of those seams being weaved here I suppose it just doesn't actually click as strongly bad guy bad guy was that guy was cool bad guy was surprisingly engaging to watch the entire time anytime he showed up on screen and his motive to find it's like a cheesy motive of where he finally has sport he finally has a prey that he can they can be on his equal terms I don't feel like they pay that off super strong in terms of like the ultimate showdown or the tit for tat no I mean we had a great and granted in the show of reacher you don't really get that till the third season with someone where they have a whole show to build that up to and I don't know maybe having a little bit of history there between them might have helped elevate it because this guy's like man this reacher seems like he's the ultimate thing but it's coming right after a scene where he took on Kobe smolders and Tom Cruise and kicked both of their asses that to have that line of dialogue like oh i think you actually kind of undercut it

Starting point is 00:21:15 because of that when maybe it might have been more effective if it seemed more like an equal match yeah versus you just whoop their asses you both and there's two with him you know yeah yeah it's like there's a skewing of the stakes and i feel like two in his perform like that guy whoever that actor is i feel like his performance was the pitch i felt like most things in the movie ought to have been matching because he could sell things nicely but he also had just enough of that sort of like deranged glimmer without being like a scene chewer or anything like that he felt like just this side of larger than life and too like a formidable foe and it's like if the movie like we don't need deep deep deep dives on any of these people but i feel like yeah if they had really given him

Starting point is 00:22:01 one extra layer of character to really make him like this memorable like again even jai courtney He was, like, in the context of that movie, not the most major player in the first one. He still, like, stands out for more than just being an actor who I liked watching. You know, like, he fit really well into the role of his character in that world and also was, like, a standout physical presence for Tom Cruise to square off against. And this, like, had that, but at the same time, it's weird.

Starting point is 00:22:34 Like, everything else felt a little more drab in comparison. to him so uh hey we we predicted this oh the scene said in washington dc we're not filmed there oh we're not except for green screen and plate yeah there's a power he looked in louisiana when they were running and they ran to the cab it looked keyed and yeah definitely it's a little outline here yeah it's it's like this is one of those movies where i feel like you could keep most all of the bones it's mostly about the tones like to tie it all together and to really have made it sing uh yeah it's like if you you took mostly the same

Starting point is 00:23:13 stuff and applied like that guy's energy to it this might be a banger so this was the 18th book okay and one shot is the ninth book damn well and two like the one shot has that element of like even though jag racher and and uh that guy bar whatever his name was you know the guy who's being framed they don't like know each other well reacher still like knows of him or there's a moment where he's like, no, no, no, you need to understand something about this guy. And I feel like if the movie had done that with him for the other guy, like, we just watched

Starting point is 00:23:44 season three of Jack Reacher, and that season demonstrated a really great ability that I'm sure is, I would imagine as president in the books, uh, wherein you build up characters simply through other people's purview on them or their assessment of them. And, uh, I don't know. This is, this movie almost felt like it lacked like a full perspective. I don't know quite whose perspective I was watching the movie from. And I know that like, I guess omnipotent perspective is kind of it. But, you know, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:24:11 Even in the first movie, you feel like you're on the, you're along the ride with your eyelines and with Jack Reacher. Yeah. And in this, I feel like I was just kind of thrown in the car with everybody and was, I was here for all of this rather than being like swept up in the momentum of it. And, you know, with these kinds of movies, too, I think you just want to feel like the movie is kind of smart. And this one didn't really feel smart in any way, shape, or shape.

Starting point is 00:24:34 It didn't feel like clever. It didn't take me by surprise very often. mystery didn't feel like oh i got to figure this out or i'm so dizzy but i just got to keep up because there's too much to you know when it wasn't exactly like fun cheesy either and the last the last law of new orleans stuff especially just kind of feels like dour it gets your hopes up and then and then yeah it just feels kind of they're in the hotel room and they're you know really it's weird like the hotel rooms it's weirdly though the hotel rooms i thought were like the most uh emotionally engaging scenes it really felt like they came out with some kind of like two and a half or three hour movie that probably had like a whole plot line about reacher struggling with his propensity for violence and whatever else and his brand of justice but it feels like they removed all of that and basically made his personal story like minor chemistry with cobi smolders plus this possibility that maybe being a dad could be cool because this girl uh did what i would do yeah so like i like i like

Starting point is 00:25:35 I get why revealing the character too deeply too much is probably not a good idea, but like, or, you know, you would want to parse in that out over time. But I feel like there were some easy ways they could have, you know, yeah, enhanced the reacher perspective or made his character more engrossing. This is so weird because, yeah, it's like there's so much about this. It's like pretty good to fine. But that just makes it stand out more. I think because the first one is like surprisingly good, it makes what doesn't quite click about this one. it's like it's fine it's like it's kind of it's fine

Starting point is 00:26:06 as a totality you know like there's a lot of good pieces but it's ultimately just like kind of fine and it's kind of anonymous oh well yeah I give like a 5 out of 10 yeah no exactly

Starting point is 00:26:20 it's like right in the middle it's like there there's enough good things and then enough other things that balance each other out 50 50 yeah I'd give like I give the first Jack Reacher movie like a 7.8 yeah yeah yeah like a high seven-ish yeah it's pretty high for me yeah yeah totally and there's a lot like there are scenes in that movie that I would gladly just like look up on YouTube again yeah and I do think that you know and the thing is we like the stoicism that Tom Cruise is bringing him but

Starting point is 00:26:52 reacher also does have a sense of humor to him yeah he's right and that's missing he's sneaky he can be dower and he can be very serious but yeah he's got that sneaky humor he just seems like so straightforwardly serious in this movie it felt like they wanted to have some kind of not exactly one to one but yeah like an m i3 level like no man his soul is being tested by this like this like i don't know you could have done some kind of but the plot setup doesn't really warrant that no it's like i get why this would be one of the later books because i can see how in a series like this after getting to know this guy and his routine for a good amount of time then going oh man man, he might have a secret daughter. That's crazy. Like, to do that in movie, too, when we've just met this character and are still establishing what the episodic flavor could be. Yeah, it, it, I think that's maybe a story choice

Starting point is 00:27:44 that maybe was a bit pretty, like anything works when it's good. But yeah, I feel like given the fact that they probably wanted a franchise, this didn't serve to humanize the character. It actually kind of had the opposite effect. oh well what are you going to do thank you guys so much for being here glad we can go on this whole full reacher journey we've watched it all we've seen it all i would still show up for a part three please even with the reacher season the reacher series running hey this movie was released october 21st and i get it now it's a halloween movie it really is oh damn die hard of of halloween that's wild just reacher never go back that's that's funny. Yeah, man. Every year I'm going to dress up as Jack Reacher now and fly to New Orleans and recreate these scenes. But it doesn't have, it just happens to be Halloween. It doesn't feel like Halloween. It doesn't feel like Halloween. There's so much you could do with that. There is so, so much you could do and have fun with and still maintain a certain level of grounded, you know, rye realism. Yeah. Like there's so much that New Orleans offers you and.

Starting point is 00:28:58 ah now we're gonna do and as a Halloween kid you know it just it hurts my soul a little thank you guys for being here thank you so much thank you um leave your thoughts down below on jack rich or never to go back rank all the books and we will be see you guys too thanks reject nation reach reject nation see for jack reach for season four next year who peace

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The Reel Rejects - JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK (2016) IS UNDERRATED?! MOVIE REVIEW!!

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