STACK #148 Feb 2017

DVD&BD FEATURE

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AMERICAN RONIN

Magnolia (1999) He may have won an Oscar for Born on the Fourth of July , but his fearless performance as a sleazy self help guru in Paul Thomas Anderson’s moving ensemble drama remains a career highpoint. Collateral (2004) Probably the closest he has got to playing a villain (albeit a sympathetic one), Cruise brought AN ACTION MAN NOT JUST Tom Cruise is best known for his action roles, but he occasionally steps outside his comfort zone.

Tom Cruise returns as the lethal one-man army in Jack Reacher: Never Go Back . Words Adam Colby

“I am that guy that sits there in the movie theatre Friday night with the popcorn,” Tom Cruise explains. “I’m like, ‘entertain me’, you know what I mean? With each different kind of genre style of film, that’s what I think about.” It’s a philosophy that has served the Hollywood superstar well over his 30-plus year career and explains why he had no hesitation in returning for Jack Reacher: Never Go Back , the second film to be adapted from Lee Childs’ best- selling action series. This time around, Reacher gets drawn back into his shadowy military world to clear his name and not only uncovers a major government conspiracy, but a secret from his past that could change his life forever. Reacher is less a lone wolf hero

Cruise also relished the chance to face off against an equally lethal bad guy – the Hunter, played by Patrick Heusinger. “Each story needs a different kind of opponent. You need the obstacles and the bigger the obstacles, the more powerful the story is. I think that with the Hunter, you feel his physical ability, his intelligence, his ruthless nature – and they’re polar opposites.” At this stage, it’s not known whether there will be anymore Jack Reacher movies – Cruise is already preparing for Mission Impossible 6 – but he clearly is a big fan of the character. “What I love about Reacher is he’s off the grid, he’s a character that really, really has his own moral code” Cruise says. “He’s someone who has a great sense of what is right and what is wrong, and gets drawn into these situations and has to make those tough decisions that sometimes other people can’t make. “When I go to a movie, I like to get lost in the film, and I live vicariously through those characters. Jack Reacher appeals to such a broad audience [because] it is a wish fulfillment. When he beats a guy up, you enjoy the way that he hands out justice.”

in Never Go Back and we get to see another, more sensitive, side to his character. Consequently, Cruise believes Edward Zwick – who directed him in The Last Samurai – was the perfect filmmaker to handle both the action and the film’s more intimate moments. “Ed Zwick [is] someone who I greatly admire,” he enthuses. “It was such a privilege to be able to work with him again and have this kind of collaboration. Ed is great with actors [and] he looks and finds and mines these wonderful moments. You look at the movies that he makes: [they’re] epic films [but] they’re very personal. He’s a very personal filmmaker.” Nevertheless, Never Go Back doesn’t skimp on the action; Cruise worked closely with Zwick and the fight choreographers on the film’s exhilarating combat sequences. “I do my own stunts and we design them for me and really base it on the character and the tone of the movie,” he explains. “Reacher is a close-quarter fighter. He’s a bull, and I always tell people when we start approaching it, he’s just gonna go through you. Each fight has to be different, it has to progress the story and character, so that’s what we’re constantly looking at.”

both charm and menace to the role of a hitman who embroils an innocent cab driver in his latest assignment.

Tropic Thunder (2008) With his bald skull cap and paunch, the Hollywood heartthrob was almost

unrecognisable in this starry comedy, and almost stole the show as a

monstrous, hip hop

loving studio exec.

Rock of Ages (2012) Cruise had a blast as the debauched, egotistical rock star Stacee Jaxx – his versions of Wanted Dead or Alive and I Want to

Know What Love Is were pretty damned good as well.

• Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is out on Feb 22

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FEBRUARY 2017

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