Reacher Season 3 set a new record for Prime Video as the streamer’s most-watched returning series. There are many reasons why Reacher has become such a successful juggernaut across the globe. Alan Ritchson‘s incredibly charismatic performance as the eponymous Jack Reacher stands out as a major reason for the show’s immense success. However, another reason that the series became a smash hit is that it has some of the best action scenes on television.
More than any other action-heavy show on television, Reacher stands out as one of the few series that makes the most out of its stunt sequences. It’s time to delve further into why Reacher does such an exceptional job of showcasing and executing its fight scenes.
‘Reacher’s Action Scenes Have Major Camera Confidence
Reacher‘s action sequences work so well because the show’s directors and cinematographers consistently exude strong camera confidence during the signature fight scenes. The camera takes in an action sequence’s fight choreography, without relying on any overly fanciful editing. Reacher does not cheat viewers by constantly cutting around the major action beats. The creative team utilizes straight-up angles, with a strong emphasis on wide shots, while also providing exceptional, clean, and crisp cinematography. The action always looks grounded, visceral, and real, and never appears sloppy. The sequences emphasize the action as it unfolds onscreen instead of creating chaos with the camera angles or editing.
In the mid-to-late-2000s, The Bourne Identity films increased the popularity of handheld cinematography with their action and fight scenes. While The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum utilized that style particularly well, similar movies would overdo the shaky cam technique, and sometimes, the action would look almost indiscernible. In more recent years, shaky cam has taken more of a backseat, and it’s nice to see that the sequences in Reacher don’t suffer from overly relying on it. An action scene is always at its best when it frames both its beats and its performers. The movements of the actors are what should be spotlighted in a fight scene. It increases the connection between the characters on-screen and the viewers, adding to the overall suspense factor, and it also places the audience in the characters’ perspective.
’Reacher’s Action Scenes Have an Old-School Quality to Them
The fight sequences in Reacher also possess a classic, old-school quality reminiscent of the classic action-thrillers of the 1970s and 1980s, such as Dirty Harry and Die Hard, resulting in a more practical, realistic style. Most of the stunts are performed live on-set and captured in-camera, so these scenes achieve a high level of verisimilitude, never once breaking the show’s sense of immersion.
True, Reacher does sometimes pull off insane feats of strength, but the show always properly establishes how he manages to do so. Reacher’s stunning feats usually happen in a life-or-death situation, where his adrenaline is pumping, heightening his fight-or-flight response. When Reacher battles Paulie Van Hoven (Olivier Richters) in the Season 3 finale, “Unfinished Business,” during a tense moment in the fight, Paulie strangles Reacher with a chain and hangs him by the neck in the barn. Reacher does manage to get out of the scrape, but the camera tracks his attempt to keep the chain from strangling him to death and his intense struggle to use all his might to fight his way out of the pulley system. It’s an example of how the show’s fight scenes both offer believable solutions for Reacher and maintain the narrative’s suspension of disbelief.
Alan Ritchson Performs a Lot of His Own Stunts in ‘Reacher’
Another aspect that makes a huge difference in Reacher’s fight scenes is that Ritchson performs a significant amount of his own action and stunt work in each season. The camera showcases more of its star in the thick of the action, without constantly cutting around him to avoid showing his face. During the climactic battle at the New Age Technologies compound, Ritchson himself ran through the glass window. The only other actors who come close to this level of high-quality action and stunt work are talents such as Tom Cruise in the Mission: Impossible series and Keanu Reeves in John Wick. It’s a huge credit to Ritchson that he is so willing to perform many of the stunts. His integration throughout the action scenes increases their immersion and overall realism.
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‘Reacher’ Season 1 Still Has One of the Show’s Best Fight Scenes
Each season of Reacher is filled with memorable action scenes and moments. However, the final showdown in the Kliner Foundation’s factory still stands out as an all-time best. The setting is perfect, as Reacher and his allies, Frances Neagley (Maria Sten) and Oscar Finlay (Malcolm Goodwin), attack the Kliners and their co-conspirators. They set fire to the factory, and Reacher makes good on his promise to burn the Kliners’ entire counterfeiting operation to the ground, both literally and figuratively.
The Season 1 climax is memorable for many reasons, especially in how Finlay strips off his famous tweed suit, revealing a tank-top undershirt, clearly evoking Bruce Willis as John McClane from Die Hard. Additionally, the season’s main characters get their own unique showdowns with an archenemy during the action-packed climax. Roscoe Conklin (Willa Fitzgerald) confronts Mayor Grover Teale (Bruce McGill), the man who murdered her mentor and father figure, Gray. Finlay deals with his former friend at the FBI, Picard (Martin Roach), who was revealed to be a conspirator involved with the Kliners’ schemes. Ultimately, Reacher faces off with Kliner Jr. (Chris Webster), who disclosed earlier in the episode that he was the one who murdered Reacher’s older brother, Joe (Christopher Russell). The individual battles set up throughout the first season perfectly lead up to the final boss fights for the main trio. On its own, this set piece exemplifies why it’s difficult to think of any show with action scenes as entertaining as Reacher‘s.
