Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Reacher: Season One Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman December 21, 2022

Voracious readers of the modern Action-Thriller genre need no introduction to Author Lee Child's iconic Jack Reacher, a character who debuted in 1997 in the novel The Killing Floor. Voracious moviegoers of the modern Action-Thriller genre likewise need no introduction to the character. In 2012, the team of Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie, who have found tremendous success collaborating in some of the most recent Mission: Impossible films, made Jack Reacher and in 2016 for a sequel, which McQuarrie produced with Cruise in the lead. Even with Cruise's star power, the franchise never really took off on the big screen as it did in the books, so here is a TV adaptation made for Amazon Prime that presents Reacher from the very beginning, offering an eight-episode season that is based on the character's debut novel.

Official synopsis: When retired Military Police Officer Jack Reacher is arrested for a murder he did not commit, he finds himself in the middle of a deadly conspiracy full of dirty cops, shady businessmen and scheming politicians. With nothing but his wits, he must figure out what is happening in Margrave, Georgia. The first season of Reacher is based on the international bestseller, Killing Floor by Lee Child.

Reacher's faithfulness to the original novel is to be commended. While it obviously, even at eight episodes, lacks all of the nuance and character- and world-building found in the books, this is a fundamentally faithful adaptation that will please fans who loved the book and want to see it come alive on the screen with some level of authenticity. The show finds a good blend of action and drama with sprinklings of humor, the latter of which mercifully never overextends its welcome.

The opening episode's opening minutes certainly bring to mind the first act of First Blood, and while parts of the story certainly borrow -- and sometimes very liberally -- from other sources, the show comes into its own rather quickly thanks to a towering performance from Alan Ritchson, who looks like a meathead but who has the brains of an Ivy Leaguer. Ritchson proves to be quite the capable lead, and it's refreshing to find a physical specimen who can also act. He won't win any awards, but he definitely carries the show's action and is even almost fully convincing as a man who is as intelligent as he is strong and as observational as he is athletic. He fills Reacher's shoes far better than Cruise, who, even in the excellent first film, just didn't capture the stature that Child developed in the book. Ritchson is a natural fit and his work portends good things for the show moving forward.

The following episodes comprise season one. Summaries are courtesy of the Blu-ray packaging:

Disc One:

• Welcome to Margrave: Reacher is wrongly accused of murder while visiting the small town of Margrave, GA.
• First Dance: When more victims are discovered, Reacher attempts to get answers but is set up. Roscoe receives a threatening message.
• Spoonful: Reacher and Finlay’s investigation into the missing Spivey leads them into a confrontation with Kliner Sr. Roscoe learns unsettling news about Reacher.

Disc Two:

• In a Tree: As the danger increases, Reacher and Roscoe grow closer and they make plans to meet with their contact from Homeland Security.
• No Apologies: As the mystery deepens, Reacher teams up with an old colleague and Finlay makes a shocking discovery.
• Papier: As the town is rocked by another murder, Reacher heads to New York and learns the truth about the illegal business in Margrave while Roscoe faces danger in the woods.

Disc Three:

• Reacher Said Nothing: Reacher springs a trap and then gets trapped himself.
• Pie: Reacher leads a rescue mission at the warehouse that ends in a showdown.

Reacher: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Reacher's debut season debuts on Blu-ray with a high quality 1080p transfer. It's not a reach to label it as "excellent." The digitally sourced picture is crisp and clean, offering no significant encode flaws and little in the way of source eyesores, like noise. The picture is very efficient and handsome, featuring high yield textural output that captures facial definition with very natural and intimate detailing. The picture never relents in its clarity and excellence, even in lower light or in less than dynamic environments, like the prison in episode one. Still, the image squeezes out every last bit of detail that this resolution can muster, and even if the companion and concurrently released UHD manages to best it, Blu-ray only viewers are never going to feel in any way short-changed in this area. Likewise, Blu-ray only viewers will not feel like the color spectrum here is lacking. The colors are bold and satisfying, offering plenty of tonal intensity and vividness in output and excellent depth and temperature balance to boot. Primaries leap off the screen and various, less dynamic support colors delight. Blacks and whites are fine and skin tones look healthy and accurate. This is a fine Blu-ray release from Paramount.

Reacher: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

This included DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack is plenty aggressive and very satisfying. Ranging from subtle atmospheric cues to full-on action extravaganzas, there's no mistaking that this track means business. All speakers are fully engaged to bring the full Reacher audio experience into the listening area for all its worth. The track is well engineered, taking full advantage of front width, surround wrap, and subwoofer output. Action scenes hit hard with plenty of depth and stage engagement, while on the other end light atmosphere surrounds the listener at all times. The prison sequences in the first episode offers some great examples. Fistfights offer plenty of bone-cracking crunch while blaring alarms and inmate din fill the stage with uncanny accuracy. Musical engagement is wide and substantially immersive while maintaining balance and clarity. Dialogue is clear and well prioritized from a stable front-center location.

Reacher: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of Reacher: Season One includes a couple of extras on disc three. No DVD or digital copies are included. This release does ship with a non-embossed slipcover.

• Realizing Reacher (1080p, 21:14): Exploring the core story, characters, casting and performances, the Jack Reacher character, action choreography, set construction, the multi-genre story flow, and more,
• Novelistic (1080p, 8:54): Exploring the character as developed in the original novel, adapting the first Reacher novel for television, and looking at how the character build is shaped on the page and on the screen.

Reacher: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Reacher's first season is not one for the record books, but it's a rock-solid adaptation of a classic novel that has room to breathe at eight episodes. Its lead is terrific, and all of the support elements work well, too, making this one of the more faithful and enjoyable novel-to-TV adaptations out there. Paramount's three-disc Blu-ray set delivers very strong video and audio presentations. Supplements are on the lean side, but what's here is fine. Recommended.