Reacher: the American Western re-imagined
Lee Child’s series of Jack Reacher novels have consistently become best sellers. Two of the books have been adapted for cinema with Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise taking the lead and we now have in the UK an eight-part series, Reacher, on Amazon Prime. The first season is based on Child’s first novel, The Killing Floor.
Child’s writing is authoritative and knowledgeable. He is at home with the country he writes about and the genre that clearly inspires him. You might expect that he is American but he is in fact British.
The set-up for Reacher is straightforward. A stranger comes into town. The people who live there are suspicious of him. Quickly it becomes clear that the stranger represents justice and will fight the corrupt rich boss who controls the town and who is willing to destroy the lives of honest folk for his own ends.
If this sounds familiar, it should. It is the plot of many American Westerns, most notably, Shane starring Alan Ladd as the white hatted hero.
The Western is a uniquely American genre. It tells the story of the West, of America through myth and adventure. Whatever the story it had all the ingredients for excitement: good guys versus bad guys, a love story, some fighting and a happy ending. It was a successful genre for many years until the homespun goodness that oozed from these films appeared at odds with a society made cynical from the Vietnam War, political assassinations and Watergate.
In the late 1960s and 1970s, American movies changes. The depiction of violence was different and many films centred on conspiracies and the skullduggery of those in power. The Westerns of John Ford and Howard Hawks were out of place. They were replaced by the action comedy of Spaghetti Westerns and films like Soldier Blue that no longer idolised the West. Perhaps the final nail in the coffin was Mel Brook’s brilliantly funny send-up of all the Western conventions. Blazing Saddles is a great film but once seen could audience take cowboys seriously again?
It seemed the Western was done. Over the years there have been several attempts to revitalise it. Notably, Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven, the Coen Brothers No Country for Old Men and recently Jeymes Samuel’s The Harder They Fall.
What Lee Child has done is take the components of the genre and put it in a contemporary setting. This might not be to everyone’s taste. Some never liked Westerns anyway. Reacher lacks the Fordian myth making sweep of history, the humanty of Hawks or obsessions of Anthony Mann. It is though a solid bit of well-done entertainment. It has the obligatory ridiculous plotting and for those of us brought up watching the genre on a rainy Saturday afternoon it takes usback to what appeared to be simpler time.
The Western will never reach the great heights it once did. Other genres have overtaken it. Science fiction, fantasy and super-heroes dominate the screen. Then again, one of the most successful franchises right now, Star Wars, also owes part of its appeal to the American West.
