JACK REACHER : NEVER GO BACK : Tuesday 25th October 2016.

The character of Jack Reacher first burst onto our cinema screens in 2012 as portrayed by Tom Cruise in the title role, and now he's back, in 'JACK REACHER : NEVER GO BACK' which I saw this week. Based on the best selling series of books by Lee Child, that first outing was developed from Child's 2005 book in the series 'One Shot' as Directed by Christopher McQuarrie and Co-Produced by Cruise for US$60M with a worldwide Box Office take of over US$218M, and generally positive critical Reviews too. Now in 2016 Jack Reacher is back and Tom Cruise is reprising his role in Lee Child's 2013 novel adaptation 'Never Go Back'. Once again Co-Produced by Tom Cruise but Directed and Co-Written for the screen by Edward Zwick this time, the film was made for US$60M, and so far made back US$60M.

The film opens up as per the early trailer promoting the film. Reacher (Tom Cruise) is sat in an empty diner with his back turned towards us, when outside pull up two Police Officers, surveying the human carnage comprising four or five strewn bodies outside the diner where are amassed a bunch of onlookers. One witness recounts that the man inside took them all out single handedly within a matter of seconds, and then took a seat at the bar in the diner. The Police walk in and promptly handcuff Reacher rifling through his meagre belongings. Reacher proclaims that within 90 seconds two things will occur - first the pay phone will ring and second, the senior Police Officer will be wearing the cuffs for the part he plays in a human trafficking ring which Reacher has just brought down. And so it comes to pass!

Next up we see Reacher speaking over the phone with Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders) who thanks him for alerting her to the human trafficking bust. The two develop a friendly rapport which also serves to set the scene for the relationship that will unfold. He vows to look her up when next he is in her neck of the woods, and arriving a few days later Reacher seeks her out at his old military headquarters at Fort Dyer. He walks into her office to be greeted by Colonel Sam Morgan (Holt McCallany) who delivers the news that Turner has been arrested and held on charges of espionage. Reacher instantly smells a rat!

Reacher locates Turner's designated military lawyer Colonel Bob Moorcroft who explains that Turner is being held over the suspected murder of two of her own soldiers in Afghanistan. While they're at it Moorcroft has done some digging on Reacher too and has 'evidence' that a Candice Dayton has filed a paternity suit against Reacher and claiming that he is the father of her daughter Samantha Dayton (Danika Yarosh), now aged fifteen, even though Reacher denies it vehemently. At a subsequent meeting Moorcroft meets Reacher on the street and hands over some further information, but is later found dead at the hands of 'The Hunter' (Patrick Heusinger) - an assassin. Reacher is framed for this murder given the two were last seen together, and that meeting ended rather acrimoniously.

Reacher is later called in to meet with Morgan and is promptly taken into custody for Moorcroft's murder, assigned a military lawyer, and is carted off to detention with Turner. Whilst being held over for questioning his spies out of the window two goons making there way into the prison, supposedly to transfer Turner to another facility. With some quick thinking and astute observations, Reacher grasps the situation and over powers the two goons in Turner's cell, and then he and she get the hell outta there. With Reacher and Turner on foot with the Military Police in hot pursuit, followed by The Hunter, the pair successfully evade capture but not before some close quarter hand to hand combat in the kitchen of a restaurant. By now they have deduced that Morgan is somehow involved, and so make their way to his house where they question him in no uncertain terms and download a bunch of relevant files to aid their own investigations. Later, The Hunter, arrives at Morgan's place and deduces that Reacher and Turner must have got away with something, and so he kills Morgan with the desk top telephone set, which has Reacher's finger prints all over it from his earlier visit.

One of the files downloaded to the USB stick at Morgan's place contained photo surveillance images of Samantha, and so they deduce that she must be in danger. The two hot foot it to her house where they find her two old hippy type foster parents dead, and Samantha hiding in a cupboard. The action then takes us to New Orlean's where the three now are in search of Daniel Prudhomme (Austin Herbert) who witnessed the murders of the two soldiers that Turner is accused of. They track him down in an old warehouse that is home to a bunch of drug addicts, of which he is now one, and learn that Prudhomme was part of a private military security organisation originally hired by the US Government, called ParaSource. Their US$1B contract had been cancelled and so ParaSource had fallen very quickly on hard times with mounting debts, and need to secure a new lucrative income stream.

Prudhomme comes clean with everything he knows including the cover up of the murders. Turner contacts a friend in the Military Police, Captain Anthony Espin (Aldis Hodge) to take Prudhomme into safe custody in exchange for everything he knows that will implicate ParaSource, but in doing so they are ambushed and Prudhomme is killed by ParaSource contractors. Needless to say Reacher and Turner overcome their attackers in a hail of gun fire and explosions.

Acting on information gleaned from Prudhomme, Reacher, Turner and Espin make for a local airport where a consignment of returning weapons is due to land a few hours from now. There, General James Harkness (Robert Knepper), the now CEO of ParaSource, is on hand to meet the arriving aircraft. Reacher and Turner have every reason to believe that the crates will be empty having sold them to the insurgents in Afghanistan, and upon intercepting Harkness and his goons, demand that the crates be opened. As per the flight manifest all weapons are in the crates intact, and Turner is left with egg on her face and a lot of explaining to do. Harkness demands that she be taken into custody by her own Military Police, but Reacher thinks that things just don't add up, and so opens up another crate, pulls out a rocket launcher and thumps it barrel end hard on the ground, ejecting several bags of opium. The process is repeated for all crates revealing over 50kgs of smuggled opium. Harkness is taken into custody so clearing both Reacher and Turner of their alleged crimes.

Meanwhile Harkness was able to trace a credit card transaction back to Samantha in the hotel where they were staying, and sent The Hunter to track her down. A foot chase between Samantha and The Hunter and two others ensues through the streets of New Orleans at night, whilst the city celebrates Halloween with a street carnival. Reacher and Turner make for the hotel and have to trace Samantha's steps in order to rescue her from certain death at the hands of The Hunter. Chasing through masked revellers, decorated parade floats, and the jostling crowds of party goers Reacher and Turner take out the two henchmen, leaving The Hunter with a captured Samantha dangling on a rooftop ledge. Samantha breaks free from her captor, leaving Reacher and The Hunter to fight to the death. Needless to say you'll guess easily enough who rises victorious albeit a little battered and bruised!

In the end with their names cleared Turner returns to Fort Dyer and to her former position. Reacher meets with Samantha in a diner and it is revealed that the woman who served him his coffee is her biological mother, and as Reacher and the woman didn't recognise each other despite the passing of fifteen years, that Reacher can't be her father, and that it was a planned ruse anyway to secure some easy money with which to start afresh. After a tearful farewell, Reacher thumbs a lift to the next town carrying just the jacket on his shoulders and a toothbrush in his pocket.

This instalment is enjoyable enough and a worthy follow on to that earlier film. It moves along at a good pace, is a simple enough story and is fairly predictable by the numbers leave your brain at the door fare too. Tom Cruise is convincing enough as the tough as nails take no prisoners vigilante drifter Jack Reacher, but there are no surprises here and a plot that we have seen before countless times. The action is fairly pedestrian and comes in fits and starts waiting for the big crescendo on the roof top in downtown New Orleans, and Samantha's final farewell to Reacher on the steps of her new school is soap box stuff! Watch out for the cameo of author Lee Child (Jim Grant). If you're a fan of the genre, or Tom Cruise, or Lee Child's series of Jack Reacher novels, then this is likely to be for you, but you can easily save yourself the price of a cinema ticket and wait for the BluRay or DVD in a few months time and watch it from the comfort of your own home.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-