Reacher season two review: cracking plot and a payload of thrills, spills and bruised limbs

There isn’t a lot to Jack Reacher, the multimillion-dollar creation of Lee Child. He’s a big guy with a short fuse and a determination not to be detained by such dreary matters as friendship, family ties or the obligations of a complicated past. Also, he looks nothing like Tom Cruise, who portrayed him in two spry yet hilarious movies.

Prime Video’s adaptation of Child’s Reacher best-sellers (Prime Video, from Friday) comes close to scrubbing all memories of the pint-sized Cruise films. Alan Ritchson is perfect as a loner happy to let his fists do the talking. However, the real fun in this second season is the cracking plot – a mystery that springs from the traps and delivers a payload of thrills, spills and bruised limbs.

It isn’t subtle. Reacher is a human time bomb who doesn’t hesitate to use violence to solve situations – an impulse the viewer is expected to see in a positive light. In an early scene, for instance, he rescues a child from a carjacking by smashing the front window and dragging out the kidnapper.

But what if the kidnapper had seen him coming and shot the kid? Such questions are waved away. In this world, everything bends around Reacher: he always gets his man, and nobody innocent ever gets hurt.

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The action begins with Reacher doing what Reacher always does – sloping into a one-horse town in Nowheresville, USA, and beating up random bad guys (ie that carjacker). Then comes a distress signal from a colleague from his army days. Someone is taking out members of their old unit, and Frances Neagley (Maria Sten) wants Reacher to fly to New York to help unpick the mystery.

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Over the next eight hours, the story unspools at a pace that at once leisurely yet sinew-crackingly intense. There are flashbacks to Reacher and Neagley’s time with the 110 special investigations unit – a halcyon chapter when they would scrap with rival squadrons, sing Elton John songs and chug beer around the campfire (a process involving shameless product placement).

In the present, Reacher and Neagley have their hands full teasing out the mystery. There are ruthless assassins, murky military figures and a nosy pensioner who almost blows Reacher’s cover when he’s trying to purloin some post pertinent to the case.

It’s as subtle as a punch to the jaw. Still, Ritchson has such an authoritative take on the character that it’s difficult not to get swept along. Prime’s Reacher is big, not very clever and great fun.