Alan Ritchson has become so closely associated with Jack Reacher that seeing him walk into another action movie immediately creates certain expectations. Someone is probably going to underestimate him, somebody else will make a very bad decision, and eventually Ritchson will demonstrate why casting a 6-foot-3 former model as Lee Child’s enormous ex-military investigator made so much sense.
Part of Reacher’s appeal is that the series never functions as pure action. Reacher can dismantle a room full of bad guys, but he also approaches each case like the hero of one of cinema’s great detective movies, following evidence until he knows exactly who deserves what’s coming.
That makes Runner, opening in theaters September 11, an easy proposition for Reacher fans. Ritchson plays former soldier Hank Malone, who becomes the target of a cartel while trying to complete a critical medical delivery alongside Owen Wilson’s Ben Bishop. The movie currently holds 67% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The premise also pushes Ritchson into survival thriller territory, with a routine assignment becoming a race to stay alive and finish the job. Early reviews have already compared Runner directly with Reacher, making the connection difficult to miss.
Fortunately, anyone looking for more of that combination of capable heroes, dangerous conspiracies, and bad people slowly realizing they picked a fight with exactly the wrong person has plenty of options.
Jack Reacher (2012)
Tom Cruise may look nothing like Lee Child’s famously enormous hero, but Jack Reacher still understands much of the character’s appeal. Cruise’s former military investigator arrives in Pittsburgh after a sniper is accused of murdering five people, then begins pulling apart a case that becomes considerably more complicated than it first appears.
The movie works because Reacher always seems two steps ahead without becoming invincible. Christopher McQuarrie gives Cruise plenty of detective work between fights, while Werner Herzog makes an unexpectedly unsettling villain. Anyone who discovered the character through Ritchson’s series should find plenty of familiar DNA here, even if the physical interpretation is very different.
The Accountant (2016)
Ben Affleck’s Christian Wolff may be an accountant rather than a former military police officer, but he shares Reacher’s preference for solving problems with unnerving efficiency. Wolff works for dangerous criminal organizations while secretly possessing the combat skills to deal with anyone who decides his services have become inconvenient.
Like Reacher, The Accountant gets much of its fun from allowing everyone around its hero to underestimate him. Affleck plays Wolff with almost no wasted movement, whether he is studying financial records or dismantling armed opponents. The movie became successful enough to launch its own action franchise, and the basic appeal is remarkably similar.
Shooter (2007)
Mark Wahlberg plays former Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger in Shooter, a man living quietly in isolation until the government pulls him back into service. After being asked to help prevent a presidential assassination, Swagger discovers he has actually been positioned to take the blame for it.
That puts him squarely in Reacher territory. Swagger is highly trained, deeply suspicious of authority, and extremely difficult to kill once the people framing him realize he knows too much. Much of the satisfaction comes from watching him work backward through the conspiracy before turning his attention toward everyone responsible.
The Equalizer (2014)
Denzel Washington’s Robert McCall wants a quiet life, but he has a particular inability to ignore people being victimized by someone more powerful. When a young woman he knows is brutalized by Russian gangsters, McCall’s carefully hidden past begins coming back into view.
Antoine Fuqua turns McCall into one of modern action cinema’s great hyper-competent heroes. Before violence begins, he studies a room and identifies every threat. The pleasure should be immediately familiar to Reacher fans: the villains believe they are dealing with an ordinary man right up until it becomes far too late.
Chris Hemsworth leaves Thor’s hammer behind for something considerably grittier in Extraction. He plays Tyler Rake, a former Australian special forces soldier turned mercenary who is hired to rescue the kidnapped son of an Indian crime lord from Dhaka.
Rake is less controlled than Jack Reacher and considerably more self-destructive, but both characters thrive when a mission becomes almost impossibly dangerous. Sam Hargrave’s background as a stunt coordinator also gives Extraction exceptional close-quarters action, making it an easy recommendation for viewers who prefer their thrillers with as much physical danger as possible.
Nobody (2021)
Bob Odenkirk was hardly the obvious choice to become an action hero after Better Call Saul, which is precisely why Nobody works. Hutch Mansell initially appears to be a defeated suburban husband whose family barely respects him after he refuses to fight back during a home invasion.
Then a group of men makes the mistake of bothering him on a bus. Nobody belongs to the same growing class of adult action movies that have helped make R-rated releases major box office players. Like Reacher, it understands how satisfying it can be to watch an apparently ordinary person reveal a frightening level of competence.
Man On Fire (2004)
Denzel Washington delivers one of his most memorable action performances as John Creasy, a former CIA operative struggling with alcoholism who reluctantly accepts work protecting a young girl in Mexico City. His relationship with Lupita slowly gives him a reason to care about something again.
When she is kidnapped, the movie becomes a brutal revenge thriller. Creasy methodically works his way through everyone involved, using experience and patience rather than superhero abilities. The emotional stakes make Man on Fire heavier than most Reacher stories, but anyone who enjoys watching a dangerous former operative take justice personally should be completely on board.
Walking Tall (2004)
- Release Date
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April 2, 2004
- Runtime
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86 minutes
- Director
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Kevin Bray
- Writers
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Brian Koppelman, Channing Gibson, David Klass
- Producers
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Ashok Amritraj, David Hoberman, Jim Burke, Keith Samples, Lucas Foster, Paul Schiff
Before Dwayne Johnson became one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Walking Tall cast him as Chris Vaughn, a former U.S. Army Special Forces sergeant who returns to his Washington hometown and discovers that corruption has taken over the community.
The small-town setting makes this one particularly easy to recommend to Reacher fans. Vaughn arrives as an outsider, encounters locals terrorized by powerful criminals, and decides official channels are not doing enough to stop them. There is almost a classic Western simplicity to the setup: one formidable stranger, one corrupt town, and a lot of people about to regret pushing him too far.