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Not every literary creation is lucky enough to get a second chance on screen, but that second chance has proved to be a charm for Jack Reacher. After two modestly successful but critically-panned movies with Tom Cruise in the title role, it’s now fair to say that author Lee Child’s bestselling series has finally found its groove on TV with Reacher. Child has written 24 novels in the series, and co-authored two further novels with his brother, with a new one on the way in October. In each of them, we follow Jack Reacher, a former US Army major and military policeman who, after leaving the army, decides to roam the United States taking odd jobs and somehow always finding himself investigating suspicious and frequently dangerous situations.
Many fans of the books never took to Cruise in the role, largely on account of the actor’s height. Cruise is five foot-seven and, on the page, Reacher is six foot-five. When he was asked about the height difference at the time, Child said there was no actor with that stature who could play Reacher effectively. Clearly, at that point, he’d not been introduced to Alan Ritchson. Ritchson isn’t quite Reacher’s height (he’s six-foot two), but the man is built like an armoured tank and as wide as a cruise ship. He dominates, literally, every scene he is in. The Prime Video series adapts Child’s first book Killing Floor, and finds Reacher arriving in the town of Margrave, Georgia at the exact moment that the small US town is reeling from its first major crime in 20 years. Wrongly framed for the crime, Reacher clears his name and reluctantly agrees to help local police, which is just as well, because bodies keep turning up.
Audiences loved it and a second season is booked in, which will go into production in the fall. With that in mind, it’ll be 2023 before we see Ritchson in action again. So, while you wait for more thrills and wince-inducing fight scenes, we thought we’d help and recommend six muscular thrillers to tide you over…
