"Jack Reacher: Never Go Back"

When "Jack Reacher" came out in theaters during the 2012 holiday season, it's a solid alternative to other films competing for awards.  A solid, whodunit crime mystery thriller.

Tom Cruise ("Mission Impossible" series, "Edge of Tomorrow," "Oblivion") is back with "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back."   This time he's no longer with Christopher McQuarrie, who directed the first movie and also the last "Mission Impossible" installment.  Directed by Edward Zwick, and unlike the first 'Reacher,' 'Never Go Back' is an action flick.

Reacher is a former military investigator, a loner and drifter, who only appears when he believes he's needed and to right injustice.  His name is a legend and people continue to address him as 'major,' in which he always responds, 'ex-major.'

Reacher flirtatiously connects with Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," "The Avengers") by telephone, with a promise that he would look her up if he's back in Washington, D.C.  Turner presently occupies his old post.  When Reacher is indeed in town, he tries to see Turner, only to be informed that she has been charged with espionage and relieved from duty.  Two officers under her command were found shot in close range during an investigative assignment in Afghanistan.

When another murder connected to the case occurs, Reacher finds himself arrested.  Clearly framed, he uses the opportunity to break Turner out of prison.  Reacher and Turner are now on the run, trying to uncover a conspiracy and clear their names.  The pair is accompanied by a girl, who may or may not be Reacher's daughter.  This just came to light when the girl's mother filed a paternity suit against Reacher.  Samantha (Danika Yarosh), is an angsty teen who shares some of Reacher's street-smart traits, yet infuriatingly lacks common sense in an instant.

Smulders is fierily fit.  The battle of the sexes looks forced and irrelevant, however, considering that it's Reacher who ends up using his street-smarts and tough-guy fights to defeat an army of generic goons and ultimately solve the cover-up.  His final mano-o-mano with the top bad guy on a New Orleans rooftop demonstrates Reacher's brutal competence.

'Never Go Back' has some amusing sequences, if not improbable, which rely on coincidences and inconsistency in characters' actions.

If you enjoy action movies, you'll be entertained by 'Never Go Back," but there's nothing special about this run-of-the-mill actioner.

DVD: http://tinyurl.com/nevergobackdvd

DVD (blu-ray): http://tinyurl.com/nevergobackbluray

Book: http://tinyurl.com/nevergobackbook

"The Girl on the Train"

Directed by Tate Taylor, "The Girl on the Train" draws the inevitable comparison with David Fincher's "Gone Girl."  The 2014 psychological thriller is deliriously diabolical.  Meticulously constructed, layered with intricacy and laced with dread and wit.

Adapted from Paula Hawkins' sensational novel of the same name, "The Girl on the Train," is a story about three women - Rachel (Emily Blunt; "The Huntsman: Winter's War," "Edge of Tomorrow," "The Adjustment Bureau"), Anna (Rebecca Ferguson, "Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation") and Megan (Haley Bennett) - and how their lives are entwined by obsession, loss, lies, betrayal and despair.  One did not survive and her demise becomes the central murder mystery of the movie.

Rachel is a depressed and drunken divorcee.  Every day she leaves her rented room and boards a train, presumably to her job in New York City.  The train's route passes through rows of big, beautiful houses in the grassy suburb.  One of the houses is her former home, where her ex-husband, Tom (Justin Theroux) now lives with his new wife and former mistress, Anna, and their baby girl.  Before her divorce, Rachel and Tom tried to have a baby on their own and failed.  For Rachel, it's crushing to see glimpses of their lives each day.

Rachel also notices a comely couple that lives a couple houses down the street, Megan and Scott (Luke Evans, "Immortal").  They either aren't aware or don't care that their passionate moments can be clearly seen from the train's windows.  Rachel imagines that they have a perfect life.  Megan is everything that she wants to be.

One day, the infallible image is shattered when Rachel witnesses Megan in the arms of another man on the deck.  Little did she know that the blond beauty had a dark past, which led to that moment on the deck.  Blinded with rage, she disembarks the train to confront her.  There's only one problem.  Rachel is sozzled and soon after she's off the train, she blacks out.

Rachel wakes up bruised and bloodied, not knowing what she was doing during the missing hours.  She just knows something bad happened. This is not the first time she had blacked out.  Her ex-husband used to fill her in, letting her know the things she did when she was drunk and before passing out.  They're not pretty; one of the main reasons of their divorce.

A detective (Allison Janney) follows Rachel's trail and questions her.  People came forward and said that they saw Rachel in the vicinity during the time of Megan's disappearance and death.  She also makes matters worse by reaching out to the husband and having a track record of stalking her ex-husband and his new wife.  But she's not the only suspect. The husband and Megan's therapist (Edgar Ramirez) are also thrown into the spotlight.

Revelations come out through repressed memories.  Rachel realizes that things are not what they appear to be and she put the two and two together.  Unfortunately, a crucial key to the mystery relies solely on a coincidental encounter.  And the timelines are all over the map.  Flashbacks and time jumps can be great when they are used effectively, but here they are disorienting.  The pacing is off the rails.

Blunt keeps the bleak movie rumbling through her acting, on the mark as a wrecked spirit.  Although it's one too many close-ups of her glazed eyes, tear-streaked face, slurred voice and haunting expressions.

The whodunit mystery is not only solved in the end, but the story also wrapped up wholly.  It feels like the road to get there should be more suspenseful and destination less neat.

"The Girl on the Train" has its moments, but it falls short of its twisty aspirations.  

http://www.sdentertainer.com/movies/movie-review-the-girl-on-the-train/

DVD: http://tinyurl.com/thegirlonthetraindvd

Book: http://tinyurl.com/thegirlonthetrainbook