The Legend Slayer Cometh
Once Again-Dismantling Or Trade Puffing The Legend Of One Jack Reacher?-Tom
Cruise’s “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” (2016)-A Film Review
By Will Bradley
I am not as a
legendary-slayer (and on occasion as here a legend promoter I guess we would
call it) impervious to the taunts and barbs of the latter-day press agents,
flak-catchers and toadies whose sole reason for existence is to grab a soft
paycheck hustling their client’s claims to legend status. In this business
those noises come with the territory and are what I would call collateral
damage incident to getting the average citizen to think through who deserves if
anybody legendary status. In my last review touting Jack Reacher’s candidacy
for that status I mentioned in passing a few legends that I have put a dent in.
That however had not stopped the press agents from howling bloody murder when I
step on their clients’ toes.
People are surprised and
maybe the reader of this piece will be too that a deadbeat like Robin Hood once
he grabbed every piece of land King Richard would grant him turned from
cheapjack highway robberies to gouging his yeomen tenants until they cried “uncle”
and was so cheap he left his bastard daughter with one of the milkmaids three
sheep and said good luck. Three fucking sheep. Yet his paid press agent Friar
Tuck filled the Domesday books with so many lies about his generosity that it
would take centuries to answer every one. Here is the surprising part this
press agency did not stop with Tuck when he passed on to hell but was taken up
by his son and the son’s boyfriend and from there passed to the Dominicans who
have perpetuated the malarkey until I put a big crimp in their operation. Same
with the slaver Captain Blood whose latest flak-catchers have proposed that
there be reparations to any descendants of slaves who passed the Middle Passage
on one of the Captain’s ship. Bullshit since there is no money attached to that
so-called plan. Worse of all and my fellow writer here Laura Perkins can
testify to this since she had to deal with this bastard while defending herself
against the crazies who wanted to trash her idea that all serious 20th
century art is twisted up with sex and erotica are the defenders of Larry
Lawrence, aka Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick who worked under various aliases
from Nigel Bruce to Doc Watson like
Doyle, Arthur Gilmore Doyle who has attempted a massive counter-attack on the
Lawrence legend ( I refuse to call him Holmes as the documented records in
Scotland Yard have Lawrence as his real name on his extensive police rap
sheet).
Needless to say, when I
went to bat for Jack Reacher all hell broke loose not only from the various
press agents whose clients I have dinged like those above who came out of their
caves with massive furor but those who question why I would proffer an “off the
grid” ex-servicemen as worthy of legendary status. A guy who claimed to have
known Jack over in Iraq when he ran a big-time MP unit after the heavy fighting
subsided claimed, erroneously when I checked the facts, that Jack was running a
numbers racket forcing his underlings to fork up dough, or else. Noise, just
noise. Moreover, anybody except some toady of some busted legend would have
noticed that I went out of my WAY in capital letters to say that I was touting
the guy not based on his military record although the skills he learned there
would have helped with his actions in the Barr case. Particularly as he went
about his “off the grid” business and was impervious to press agent build-ups.
I liked that.
The silliest e-mail I
received, and I am not sure that it might not have been a ruse put out by the
Marvel Comics cabal was challenging my subsequent debasing of the budding
legend machine around some punk high school kid name, get this Peter Parker,
aka the Spider Man. The kid a joke promoted by one Tony Stark aka Ironman to
build up his own legend by having what he called a swarm of docile avengers
ready to save the world, or given how many times the place been invaded,
marauded, twisted and plain bombed New York City. This kid, this Parker for
crying out loud puts his “uniform” on in back alleys with the cats. Give me a
break. Last I heard he had been fighting red-tail lizards the smallest variety
of the species and barely holding his own after some mad scientist who knew his
late father went too fast in his protocol and almost screwed up the world, or
least New York. Some young woman classmate had to bail him out by figuring out
a formula to stop the little bastards. I will have more to say about the Stark
“creation” shortly since the publicity department at Stark Industries had
decided to make a film about the kid’s “exploits.”
The beauty and it really is
a beauty in modern times when everybody with access to a smart phone and that
means about everybody is promoting themselves or some silly cause here is Jack
out in the wilderness what I have already called “off the grid,” a nomad. Even
I could not believe the story when I heard it being just cynical enough not to
buy into legends having spent some serious time debunking the run of the mill
bums. I initially thought Jack was an invention of some agency, some “deep
state” agency who were running him like the old time Soviet sleeper operations
(keep the agents under cover and then spring them on an unsuspecting world like
they did with Trump). On misty nights when I am in a funk I still think that
may be true. But I have taken the leap of faith on this one based on the case
he had just finished, the Barr case where he saved a guy he didn’t even like
from the big step-off. That intrigued me.
The funny thing about Jack
and in the deep recesses of my mind make me finch is how he is as isolated as his
is “connected,” knows his way around Washington, D.C. (a town that Stark and
his dumbass minions in the Marvel/DC Comic cabal giving New York City a break should
think about saving for it surely needs saving). From nowhere Jack can call up
his replacement at the old 110th MP unit, the elite unit now led by a
woman as it turned out. This woman, a major, is in trouble on two scores-one a
couple of her agents got wasted by some rogue U.S. agent in Iraq and closer to
home was relieved of her command and charged with espionage. (I might as well
forewarn the romantics out there that nothing with take place between the two
under the silky sheets, although not for her not giving him some encouragement
but Jack is built differently as they say these days. After leaving a hint in
the Barr case where Jack did not take on the drop-dead beautiful lawyer
defending the sniper that Jack was probably gay and that was okay in this day
in age when our legends can be gay or whatever. This case confirmed my
suspicions and it is clear that Jack is at least more comfortable around men
and we will leave it at that)
Jack to the rescue
following all kinds of false leads after personally springing the Major from
the stockade to find out why her people were killed and for what reason (no
mean feat and a rather high bar that those fake legends like Robin Hood, Larry
Lawrence, Casanova and the crowd would crumble under). This pair, this skilled
pair after seven kinds of hell finally figure out that the whole thing is a
scam being run at a high level involving weapons to the bad guys in Afghanistan in exchange for high grade opium
to help a faltering state-side business (which Afghans at while moment a good
question if you can figure out who is good and who is bad something the
British, Russians and American have never figured out to their respective
sorrows). A scam that big meant somebody in the American command, a General,
was running the whole operation using rogue Black Water-type ex-military to do
their bidding. Case closed Jack walked away (away from a bogus paternity suit
as well but that was only filler here since we now know Jack’s sexual
preferences). Walked away to hitch a ride to some place leaving me here to sing
his song of glory. Enough said
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