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For Jack Reacher of other continuities, see Jack Reacher (Disambiguation).


Jack Reacher, or simply Reacher, is the titular main protagonist of the 2012 film Jack Reacher and its 2016 sequel Jack Reacher: Never Go Back as well as the video game Jack Reacher: Never Stop Punching. He is a former major in the United States Army, serving as a Military Police Officer.

Biography[]

Jack Reacher (2012)[]

After James Barr is arrested for murdering five people, Jack Reacher comes to town looking for him in order to make sure he stays behind bars. However, by the time Reacher gets there, James is in a coma. While visiting James in the hospital alongside Detective Emerson and District Attorney Alex Rodin, he meets Barr’s defense attorney, and daughter of Alex, Helen Rodin.

Helen tells Reacher that she can have him look into the evidence against Barr if he becomes the lead investigator for the defense. However, Reacher declines. Saying he isn't there to defend James, but actually put him away for good. As, long ago, Barr had gone on a killing spree during his tour in Iraq, but had gotten off on a technicality. Reacher then vowed that if Barr tried anything like this again, he would take him down.

Reacher then prepares to head on a bus leaving town. However, Helen persuades him to stay and investigate the case. Which he reluctantly does. Reacher goes to the parking garage where the murders took place at exactly the same time of day as the shooting and finds inconsistencies with the location. He believes the shootings would be easier and cleaner if done from the cover of a van on the nearby Fort Duquesne Bridge. When Helen reports her findings about the victims to him, he makes some theories of his own, suggesting that not all the victims were random. But that there was a specific target in mind.

Reacher then goes to a bar to clear his head. While there, he is approached by a young woman who seems to be underage. Reacher doesn't take the bait and is forced into a bar fight. After easily winning the fight, Reacher is arrested. However, the boys he roughed up aren't pressing charges. Confirming to him that it was all a set-up.

Instead of scaring him, this confrontation just motivates him further to solve the case. After looking into one of the boys, he discovers that James Barr frequented a local shooting range in the neighboring state of Ohio. The range is owned by former USMC Gunnery Sergeant Martin Cash, who will only talk if Reacher proves his shooting skills, which he does.

Reacher then discovers the true man behind the killings, a Russian gang masquerading as legitimate businessmen. The gang's elderly capo spent much of his life in one of the infamous Soviet Gulags and is known only as The Zec which means "prisoner".

Helen is then kidnapped by the gang and Detective Emerson is revealed to be apart of it. Reacher pursues them, eventually killing them all with Cash's help. finally, he confronts The Zec and forces him to come clean on the conspiracy and then kills him as the police would believe his word over Reacher's. Reacher and Cash flee the scene, making Reacher a wanted man.

But he's confident that Helen will clear his name. Later, Helen confronts a now awakened Barr, who informs her that Reacher is a man to fear. Reacher is then shown headed to the back of a bus to deal with a man abusing his girlfriend.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back[]

In the film, Reacher first beats up a group of criminals trafficking illegals on U.S. Army soil. An onlooker tells the cops that one man took them all on and beat them down within seconds. Sheriff Raymond Wood and his deputy enter the diner to find Jack Reacher sitting by the counter with some blood on his face. He says nothing as Wood cuffs him and prepares to take him to jail. That is, until Reacher says that in 90 seconds, the phone will ring, and Wood will be wearing the cuffs on his way to jail for kidnapping and selling undocumented immigrants on military soil.

Wood doesn't believe Reacher, until a nearby phone rings, Wood picks it up, and Military Police officers arrive to arrest him and his deputy. Reacher then leaves the diner, heading for his old army base to meet with Major Susan Turner. However, when he arrives he finds that Colonel Morgan is sitting in her chair and Turner has been arrested on espionage charges.

Reacher doesn't believe this and speaks to Sgt. Leach to learn who has been assigned as Major Turner's attorney. Sgt. Leach informs Reacher she has been ordered to not give out any information on Major Turner's case. Reach then asks what attorney Sgt. Leach would recommend to her drill instructor if he needed one. Catching on, she quickly recommends Colonel Moorcroft.

Reacher then finds Moorcroft and asks him about Turner's charges. Moorcroft tells him they found a hard-drive in her house with classified information on it. He, then, brings up a paternity suit filed against the military that claims that Reacher is the father to a daughter from a woman named Candice Dutton. Reacher adamantly denies this, but still secretly takes a picture of the woman's daughter, Samantha Dutton.

When Reacher then asks him what Susan has to say, Colonel Moorcroft informs Reacher he hasn't been allowed to see her yet. Reacher then angrily leaves and tells Moorcroft to get back to him when he remembers what his uniform stands for. Later that day, Reacher is followed into a diner by some armed hitmen. He easily disposes of them and leaves. Moorcroft then meets with Reacher and gives him a file on two soldiers, Cibelli and Mirkovich, who were both murdered at close range in Afghanistan, and it is believed that Turner was involved in their deaths.

Reacher tells Moorcroft about the individuals who had been following him and urges him to get Turner out of prison as soon as possible. From a distance, Reacher is being watched by a man known only as The Hunter.

That night, Reacher follows his supposed daughter, Samantha. After a while, Sam catches on and calls Reacher out for following her, accusing him of being a narc. He then asks Sam if she is Candice's daughter. Sam thinks Reacher is asking about her mother due to Candice's previous job as a prostitute and she walks away from Reacher angrily.

The next morning, Reacher is brought to the MP HQ by Captain Anthony Espin. Who Reacher apparently held back from being promoted when he was still a major in the army. After arriving in Colonel Morgan's office. He is arrested on suspicion of murdering Colonel Moorcroft, due to his injuries in fighting the assassin's and being the last person to see the colonel alive.

He then talks with his attorney, Lieutenant Sullivan, in jail. He spots some men arriving at the jail and knows they're there to kill him and Turner. He asks Lt. Sullivan to get him a sandwich and then escapes. He subdues Espin and takes his uniform before heading over to Turner's cell. Sure enough, the men are there to kill her. Reacher then takes them all down and gets Turner out of there. They are both spotted and chased out by the Military Police officers, but manage to make their getaway by stealing a car.

Reacher and Turner talk to Morgan in his house after realizing he's involved in the scheme. They get some information out of him and leave. Later, The Hunter shows up at Morgan's home and beats him to death with the phone since he knows Reacher's prints are on it.

Reacher contacts Leach and secretly asks her for help. She informs him that Morgan was murdered and that Reacher's prints were on the murder weapon. Looking through more of the information from Colonel Morgan's computer, Turner finds surveillance photos, including some of Samantha. He and Turner go to Samantha's foster home and find her foster parents have been murdered. Sam bursts out from under the kitchen sink with a knife in self-defense. Reacher and Turner calm her down and take her away.

While at a gas station, Reacher attempts to parent the young girl with little success. Wanting to keep her safe, Reacher and Turner take Sam to a private school, since Turner has a connection there. As Samantha talks to some of the schoolgirls, she pulls out a phone, which she told Reacher and Turner that she left back at the house. The two pull her away and decide they need to get out of there, and they throw Sam's phone away to remain undetected.

Reacher then gets a call from Leach with information on a man named Daniel Prudhomme, a military contractor in Afghanistan who was part of the conspiracy there. Leach also mentions a company called Parasource, which is a private military firm. The three make plans to head to New Orleans to find Prudhomme. Samantha gets out a credit card from a bag she stole from one of the schoolgirls so that they can buy their plane tickets.

On the plane, Reacher spots two contractors from Parasource. He beats them unconscious and gets information off their phones. For the rest of the plane ride, Reacher pretends to sleep and he overhears Samantha talking to Turner about their lives and who her father could be. In New Orleans, while riding a bus, Reacher comes clean to Samantha that it's possible he's her father, and that's why she's being hunted along with him and Turner. She doesn't believe Reacher's claims at first until he mentions that Candice filed the paternity suit with the army.

After renting a hotel to keep Samantha safe, Reacher and Turner find a frightened Prudhomme in an abandoned building full of junkies. Turner interrogates Prudhomme and he tells them what he knows about Cibelli and Mirkovich's deaths, as well as what he knows about Parasource.

Reacher and Turner get in touch with Espin and have him speak to Prudhomme to learn the truth. As Espin is escorting Prudhomme out, they are ambushed by assassins from Parasource. Prudhomme is shot and killed, and Reacher jumps in to fight and kills the villains. Reacher also protects Espin, and they manage to get away.

Reacher, Turner, and Espin then meet up with other military officers at a base to confront General James Harkness, the CEO of Parasource. Turner accuses him of selling arms to insurgents, and that the cases he and his men are unloading are empty. Some cases are opened but, to Turner's surprise, they actually contain arms. As she is about to be arrested, Reacher goes to an open case and finds opium hidden in the weapons, leading to Harkness's arrest.

Moments later, Reacher gets a call from The Hunter, saying he is going after Sam after she called for room service and used one of her stolen credit cards and it gets flagged.

Reacher and Turner race back to the hotel to save Samantha. She sees The Hunter and his goons going down the street during a Halloween parade, so she escapes the room. The villains chase her through the streets with Reacher and Turner trying to catch up to them. They kill The Hunter's goons before facing him on the roof. The Hunter has Samantha held at gunpoint and threatens to throw her off. Reacher drops his gun and kicks it to The Hunter, leaving Sam with an opportunity to grab The Hunter's gun out of his hand. Reacher tackles The Hunter off the roof. They fight a little while longer until Reacher breaks The Hunter's neck and throws him off another ledge.

With her name cleared, Turner is reinstated to her old position. With her and Reacher promising to keep in touch and make dinner plans in the future. Reacher then visits Samantha in a diner to meet her mother after so long. However, her mother doesn't recognize him, signaling that Reacher isn't Samantha's birth father. Samantha doesn't care, however, and gives Reacher her number in a phone she slips into his pocket. Vowing to stay in touch with him.

The film then ends with Reacher hitching for a ride. He then gets a text from Sam that asks, "Miss me yet?" Causing him smile as he sticks his thumb out.

Personality and Traits[]

Reacher is a tough and stoic individual, who doesn't like staying in one place for very long. Reacher also seems to avoid any form of law enforcement despite being former Military Police. Reacher is also a highly intelligent individual who will do anything to help others. He also legitimately cared for Samantha Dutton when he found out he could be her father and even attempted to parent her. However, he wasn't much of a parent.

Physical Appearance[]

Jack Reacher is a slim and somewhat muscular man. A stark contrast to his novel counterpart. However, he is still portrayed as a very strong individual who is able to fight multiple opponents at once. He also possesses some scars on his body during the first film. However, when, where, and how he got these scars is not revealed and they don't appear in the sequel. He also has a scarred face, black hair, and green eyes.

Appearances[]

Behind the Scenes[]

Notes and Trivia[]

  • Reacher commanded the 110th Special Investigations Unit of the Military Police. However, none of the unit's members appear in the films.
  • He has two Silver Stars, Defense Superior Service medal, two Legion of Merits, Soldier's medal, Army Commendation Medal, Bronze Star, and a Purple Heart. He earned the Purple Heart for wounds sustained during the bombing of a Marines barracks in Kandahar.
  • It is possible many of Reacher's previous novel adventures happened in this timeline. Due to his various scars, however, this is never revealed.
  • Tom Cruise's portrayal of Reacher has been heavily criticized by both fans of the books and general audiences alike, due to Cruise not looking anything like Reacher in the novels. However, much of his personality remains consistent with his novel counterpart.

Book Comparisons[]

Jack is very much physically nothing alike his book counterpart. A major criticism of his films.

References[]

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