Tom Cruise does not make small movies, and even when he does lower the scope and scale somewhat, he’s still churning out broad, crowd-pleasing genre films. The actor hasn’t starred in anything resembling a straightforward drama since 2007’s Lion for Lambs, and that doesn’t look as though it’s going to change anytime soon.
In fact, if you include the seventh and eighth installments in the Mission: Impossible franchise and Top Gun: Maverick, then only five of Cruise’s sixteen most recent movies have cost less than $100 million to produce, with just two of them coming in with budgets under $75 million.
Of those two, Jack Reacher also marked the debut of the only character outside of Ethan Hunt that the action icon has ever played more than once, at least until he returns as Pete Mitchell next summer. It additionally saw Christopher McQuarrie direct his first film in twelve years after being hand-picked by regular collaborator Cruise, a decision that’s worked out very well for both parties.
Jack Reacher is a breath of fresh air in the 21st Century Cruise filmography for being an old school, stripped-down thriller that doesn’t hold any airs or graces about being an expansive end-of-the-world story. It’s a lean, mean and hugely entertaining machine, one that’s been rapidly rising up the Netflix most-watched list to crack the Top 10, as per FlixPatrol.
