You can join the bitch squad and complain that five-foot-seven Tom Cruise has no business playing Jack Reacher, the six-five, 250-pound bruiser of an ex-military cop who walks tall and carries a big grudge against authority in Lee Child's novels (17 to date).

Or you can let the physical stuff go and admit that Cruise is good in the role, damn good. At 50, Cruise has a physical dexterity that makes you believe he can mix it up with five guys in a fight scene, take his lumps and still win. Cruise also catches the mental dexterity that puts Reacher ahead of his enemies as he drifts around the country finding trouble.

You should know that Lee Child, the pseudonym for British author Jim Grant, never wrote a book called Jack Reacher. The plot comes from One Shot, Child's ninth Reacher novel. Its self-contained story makes it a solid place to start. A sniper fires into a crowd, killing five people with six shots. Why? Don't expect spoilers. I'll say only that Reacher is called in by the number-one suspect, James Barr (Joseph Sikora), a former Army sniper Reacher never liked. What Reacher does know is that a military sniper wouldn't miss a shot unless it was on purpose.

And so the investigation begins. The skilled director Christopher McQuarrie, who wrote The Usual Suspects and adapted Child's book, has an irresistible feel for the criminal underbelly. There are many tasty characters. Perhaps too many. But it's a kick to have German filmmaker Werner Herzog around as a depraved piece of work known as the Zec. Newcomers Jai Courtney and Alexia Fast also make strong impressions on the wrong side of the law. But this is Cruise's show. And he nails it. The patented smile is gone, replaced by a glower that makes Jack Reacher a dark and dazzling ride into a new kind of hell.

“Is It True”

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."