Jack Reacher Was A Response To This Classic Crime Movie Trope

Jack Reacher might seem like a fairly straightforward character, and in many ways he is. He's big, he's good at fighting, and he doesn't like bad guys doing bad stuff. But his genesis is slightly more complicated than you might think.

Lee Child has spoken about the main inspirations behind Jack Reacher before, telling fellow author Stephen King during a discussion event that he created the character as modern version of the archetypal mysterious stranger which has shown up throughout history, from, as Child explained, the "Robin Hood stuff" to "the old Scandinavian myths" and the "Anglo-Saxon myths." In Child's view, Reacher is a modern version of a religious figure; a savior with an almost supernatural quality that shows up when you need him most and has such a dogged commitment to acting in a morally upstanding way that he transcends the human capacity for good. Child also spoke about wanting to combine the physicality of Goliath with the morality of David, and cited his own feelings of vulnerability as a jumping off point for Reacher's own towering physique.

This covers the fundamentals of the character: a large brute of a man with a heart of gold and the ability to dispatch pretty much any challenger (though Olivier Richters' Paulie, who somehow made Alan Ritchson look small, certainly gave him a run for his money in season 3 of "Reacher"). But there's more to Jack Reacher than these basic tenets, with Child telling the New York Times that his ex-military policeman character also emerged out of a desire to push back against what he saw as a tired trope. "The detective was an alcoholic," said the author, "which was great the first time out, a real issue, real characterization. But then the next guy is a divorced alcoholic. Then a divorced alcoholic whose teenage daughter hates him. Then a divorced alcoholic whose teenage daughter hates him, and he's accidentally shot a kid in the dark so he has to go and live in a cabin in the woods for the rest of his life." In response, Child set out to make a character who was "much more of an old-fashioned guy," with the writer adding, "I wanted to get rid of misery because, ultimately, nobody likes miserable people."

The anti-hero archetype that Child is referring to is certainly ubiquitous in action and crime genres. The grizzled, reluctant "I don't do that kind of thing any more" action hero who's dragged out of self-imposed exile has been used in everything from the "Rambo" movies to Daniel Craig's James Bond run. In fact, in both "Skyfall" and "No Time to Die," 007 is exactly the kind of washed up down-and-out former badass Lee Child was describing before he's pulled back into the fray. Even Netflix's "Extraction" films have tapped into this trope, with Chris Hemsworth's Tyler Rake literally retiring from mercenary work in "Extraction 2," and sequestering himself in a remote cabin where he spends his days haunted by memories of his past life and watching videos of his deceased wife and son cavorting on a beach.

In that sense, you can't say Child is wrong in his characterization of action and crime stories. This kind of thing is everywhere. But is interesting to see how Jack Reacher can easily fall into that same haunted hero archetype, as evidenced by season 3 of "Reacher," which recently broke a Prime Video viewing record. In that season, which is based on the best Jack Reacher book, "Persuader," Alan Ritchson's hero is tortured by his memories of a former Army underling who is captured and killed by a rogue soldier. In the story, he often takes on the troubled anti-hero characterization, which shows that Child's creation isn't entirely inflexible when it comes to the whole anti-anti-hero thing. Still, there's no doubt he's otherwise a relatively care-free guy who spends his days wandering the United States and mostly looking forward to what comes next rather than wallowing in his past. Considering the inordinate success of both the books and the streaming series, that whole approach seems to have worked out pretty well.