Not Quite What I Had In Mind

"Reacher is a giant, standing at 6' 5" tall (1.96m) with a 50-inch chest, and weighing between 210 and 250 pounds."

That's how the character Jack Reacher is described in one of the early books to feature him, written by British writer Jim Grant under the writers name of Lee Child.  Right from the publication of Killing Floor readers of the Reacher novels have been wondering who would play Reacher when the novels made it to the big screen. I even e-mailed Lee Child many years ago to ask if he had an opinion on who would make the perfect big screen Reacher - I never got a reply by the way.

In my own mind's eye it would be the perfect role for Vincent D'Onofrio, best known to British television viewers as Detective Robert Goren in Law & Order:Criminal Intent, for cinema goers I suspect his best known role in this country as the gormless Private Leonard "Gomer Pyle" Lawrence in Full Metal Jacket. He brings a physical presence to every role and also an intelligence which has earned him the nickname among his peers as "the human chameleon."

Not only does he have the acting skills and the physical presence but he also has a slight vulnerability that makes him attractive to the opposite sex, something that is important for film producers because after all women make up a fairly sizable proportion of cinema audiences.

So you can only imagine the howls of uncontrollable laughter that emitted from my not inconsiderable frame when I heard who had been cast to star as Reacher in the film version of One Shot. Incidentally One Shot is the ninth novel in the series, what was wrong with starting with Die Trying? It's the second in the series but has themes which are very relevant to where we are now politically and socially. Anyway, back to One Shot, drum roll please, the actor playing Jack Reacher is.....Tom Cruise. No, really.

Now of course reading is a very private and personal thing, unless of course you have small children, but I can guarantee you that there isn't one person who has read any of the novels (which can by the way be read as standalone novels) finished the book and said, "You know what, that role is tailor made for that little guy who starred in Mission Impossible."

Instead of throwing his hands up in horror Lee Child has gone ahead and expressed his support for the actor’s casting, saying “Reacher’s size in the books is a metaphor for an unstoppable force, which Cruise portrays in his own way.”

Of course the little guy can hit people, we've seen that in many of his movies but I think Child is copping out here. When Reacher takes on three guys in a bar he's not using his fists as a metaphor, when he's climbing onto the roof of a building in Arizona he's not using his height as a metaphor and people haven't bought these books by the lorry load because they were buying into a metaphor - they are good stories about good beating bad - he's the modern equivalent of the man with no name, except he has one, Jack Reacher, and he's giant, standing at 6' 5" tall (1.96m) with a 50-inch chest, and weighing between 210 and 250 pounds.

You pointing at me Shorty?