I have not read the Reacher books. My interest in Amazon Prime's original series, Reacher, was purely based on the lead actor, Alan Ritchson, who I first came across watching Netflix's superhero show, Titans (which I really enjoyed).
My understanding of the books is limited to Alan being a better representation of the character's physical size than depicted in the Tom Cruise movie... and, of course, he's some kind of bad ass.
After hearing good things from different sources about the show I decided to give it a watch to see if Alan's decision to leave Titans for Reacher was a good move. Turns out, it definitely was, with the first season being much better than I expected. I thought it would be all action but the series also takes time to develop some of its lead characters too.
Plotwise, Reacher finds himself in a small, rural town on some personal business. It's not long before he is identified as a possible murder suspect and arrested in dramatic fashion. From there he works toward clearing his name while assisting the law with their investigation.
I'm not one to binge watch a series but I enjoyed this enough to binge all eight episodes over two evenings. I thought Alan, in particular, was very engaging as Jack Reacher, completely selling Jack's physical strength and his Sherlock Holmes' like ability to notice the smallest details at all times.
Alan and his co-stars, Malcom Goodwin (Detective Finlay), Willa Fitzgerald (Officer Roscoe Conklin), have an great dynamic where each seemed to be quite tightly wound in their own point of view but gradually ease off as they become more of a team. For me this was the most engaging part of the series.
In terms of action, and particularly the fight sequences, shows these days seem to go out of their way to make sure every fight sequence looks unique. Reacher is no exception. Alan's fights in particular are extremely convincing most of the time. You really believe he could easily take out multiple people without too much effort.
One of the few negatives I bumped up against is (and this is a possible minor spoiler), in the final two episodes, Reacher comes up against two people (individually, one in each episode) that he should have no trouble knocking over with a single punch but somehow they get the better of him.
It's a problem I have with a lot of action shows where you see the main character effortlessly take out a room full of henchmen in hand to hand combat, then they come up against the boss level villain, who is no stronger than any single one of their crew, but suddenly the hero can't fight effectively or efficiently.
It's particularly bad in Reacher, where his final fight is laughable at how difficult it is for him to gain the upper hand.
There's also another moment in the final episode, where a character returns, who we saw potentially die earlier, for no other reason than to give one of the main characters a nemesis to fight rather than random henchmen.
Those points aside, I genuinely enjoyed Reacher and Alan in the role. It will be interesting to see where season two goes, as I imagine that will start in a new location with an entirely new supporting cast. Though there potentially will be one or two cast carry overs.
If you like action with a good smattering of smart detective work thrown in, this is definitely for you.'