Although there are a great deal of actors who end up directing, there aren’t many filmmakers who find themselves giving performances as an additional component in their careers. Even if Martin Scorsese can do a hilarious cameo in The Studio and Quentin Tarantino makes the occasional appearance in one of his own films, they are directors first and foremost who wouldn’t be anyone’s first pick to take on a serious acting role. Werner Herzog is one of the most influential filmmakers of all time and happens to be a great actor, as he’s been giving interesting performances ever since his early German films of the 1970s. While no one expected that Herzog would pop up as the antagonist of a Tom Cruise action film, Jack Reacher certainly benefited from his appearance.
Jack Reacher was a much different film for Cruise, and not just because it was his first overt attempt at making a franchise vehicle outside the Mission: Impossible series. If Cruise often starred in high-concept or science fiction genre films, then Jack Reacher was a throwback to exploitation thrillers and gritty neo-noir thrillers, as the titular character had more in common with Harry Callahan than he did with Ethan Hunt. A film as grim and pulpy as Jack Reacher needed a memorable villain who could indicate that it wasn’t going to be a typical star vehicle for Cruise. Herzog’s performance isn’t just great, but indicative of why Jack Reacher succeeded in going against the grain.
Werner Herzog Is the Perfect Antagonist for Tom Cruise
Unlike the typical heroes that Cruise has played, Jack Reacher is a former US Army Major MP investigator who essentially acts as a vigilante after a mass shooting sparks a search for an unknown assailant. While the identity of the shooter ends up being wrapped up within a larger conspiracy, Herzog plays an enigmatic ex-Soviet known only as “Zek Chelovek,” who has coerced Detective Calvin Emerson (David Oyelowo) into framing Reacher for the crime. The Russian gangster archetype is so common in action films that this could have felt like a step too far, but Herzog has the worldly experience and grittiness needed to make the part feel believable. Although Reacher is an effective hero because he doesn’t have to abide by the rules laid out by the United States military and law enforcement chains, Zek is even more unpredictable because there are seemingly no lines that he will not cross. This is most evident within a haunting scene in which Zek forces one of his underlings to injure himself in an act of humiliation, in what might be one of the most violent scenes ever included in a PG-13-rated film.
A recurring issue with many of Cruise’s films is finding appropriate villains, as he is such an incomparable movie star that it’s difficult to find someone who could undercut his charisma or show the same commitment to physical performances. Herzog is the perfect antithesis for Cruise because he’s removed from a different generation of film history and clearly has the experience to back up any threats he gives. While Reacher is one of Cruise’s more serious characters, as he doesn’t have the same snarky sense of humor as Pete Mitchell, Zek is a villain who takes sadistic glee in tormenting people. Herzog had been so rarely in films at this point in his career that it was impossible not to consider his entire history as a storyteller when looking at his performance in Jack Reacher; he was a great selection because, in many ways, Herzog was the Cruise of his day, because of the risks he would take to complete his ambitious productions.
‘Jack Reacher’ Is One of the Most Underrated Action Films of the 2010s
Herzog was an effective villain in Jack Reacher because he brought out the darkness in the titular character, as it was impossible to not root for Reacher to take down Zek by the end, which he does in one of the most outward depictions of ruthlessness within Cruise’s entire career. Even if Cruise caught flak for not resembling the character as imagined in Lee Child’s books, Christopher McQuarrie was able to make a tight, complex thriller based on the minutia of internal investigations and judicial corruption that reflected the ever-present threat of mass shootings in the United States, a fact that was made sadly more relevant in the month of the film’s release. Herzog wasn’t as much an “action movie villain” as he was an embodiment of a real threat, and he indicated that Jack Reacher was a serious test of what Cruise and McQuarrie could do together. The fact that such a legendary artist was willing to take the role seriously speaks to the incredible growth McQuarrie made as a filmmaker in the decade since his debut.
In retrospect, Jack Reacher now feels like a minor miracle because the film could have easily been compromised if it had been put into production at a different time. Jack Reacher was a byproduct of the unexpected success of Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol, but was developed before making franchise films became Cruise’s priority. It also helped that Herzog was underexposed as an actor at this point in his career; even if he would eventually pop up for an entertaining guest role on The Mandalorian, his appearances in more comical roles in Penguins of Madagascar and Rick and Morty allowed him to be more tongue-in-cheek. One of the many reasons that Jack Reacher: Never Go Back was such a major disappointment that ended Cruise’s run as the character is that the sequel didn’t have a villain nearly as captivating as Herzog.
Jack Reacher is available to stream on Paramount+ in the U.S.
- Release Date
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December 21, 2012
- Runtime
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2h 10m
