It may be pure hokum but Reacher is, unexpectedly, sheer unadulterated enjoyment with a deadpan, on-the-spectrum Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) a 6’4″ beefcake.
Arriving on foot in the small town of Margrave, Georgia, Reacher is arrested for murder. A highly decorated former special military police investigator, Major Jack Reacher, a self-confessed hobo, finds himself in the middle of small town politics and far-reaching corruption. With the initially reluctant support of head detective, Oscar Finlay (Malcolm Goodwin), and policewoman Roscoe Conklin (Willa Fitzgerald), Reacher is drawn into the violence of a Venezualan cartel as the bodies mount in a town essentially owned by Kliner Industries.
Whilst the narrative is far from original, the quick-witted repartee and vocal sparring between the lead characters in particular is a joy as the enigmatic loner delves and investigates first one, then two, three murders – and more as they keep turning up (although Reacher is responsible for a few of them himself). Reacher can be violent at times and there’s a lot of surnames to hold on to as those victims pile up. But, with the local Roscoe and Harvard educated Bostonian, Finlay, creating plenty of frisson both for and, later, with Reacher, this first season eight episoder is an intelligent adaptation of novelist Lee Child’s Killing Floor. There’s unquestionably more to come.
Rating: 78%
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