In his 2005 novel One Shot, writer Lee Child lays out nine rules for surviving a five-against-one alley fight, a challenge his hero, the ex-Army cop Jack Reacher, is about to face. These include "Be on your feet and ready." "Identify the ringleader." "Don't break the furniture." Rule number nine is the most important: "Don't run head-on into Jack Reacher. Not when he's expecting it. It's like running into an oak tree."
As fans of Child's 17 (and counting) Reacher novels know, the drifter hero is 6-foot-5, which means that to bring this oak of a man to life onscreen, the comparatively diminutive Tom Cruise (5-foot-7) would have to overcompensate with some serious tough-guy glowering. That was the expectation, anyway. Instead, when surrounded on a dark Pittsburgh street by five fools who have been paid a hundred bucks each to beat him bloody, Cruise's Reacher gives a wry "you-asked-for-it" shrug, then puts the five down. Effortlessly. Convincingly. Cruise is definitely too short for the gig, but in this first fight, he proves his tough-guy chops. Outraged Reacher readers can stand down.
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