after reading a story about how badly miscast Tom Cruise is for his next project, i ended up reading the novels his character, JACK REACHER, hails from. a total baddass, highly decorated ex-MP. A recurring theme in the books is that a baddass MP trumps a special-forces baddass in a fight, for many reasons...ex: SEAL, Delta Force types are generally smaller (need to be fast)....Reacher is 6'5'' the main explanation given is that MPs have to be the best as they are often required to deal w/some tough basterds who are themselves trained killers. Makes sense to me. for those here w/1st hand experience, would you agree w/the author's premise?
BTW, Reacher is, of course, uniquely intelligent & skilled. ex: the only man wearing green (Army) that ever won the Wimbledon Medal, a perhaps, fictional sniper competition usually reserved only for Marines
I my experience, you never know what further individual training a soldier has had independent (or not) of his "official" AIT. I've known SF vets who went MP, MPs who went SF, artillery guys who went to Ranger School, etc. Even Marines can go to (Army) SF and/or Ranger school, so the individual branches cross over more than is common knowledge. I've known SF snipers, Ranger snipers, snipers who were simply attached to SF and/or Ranger units, and snipers who rarely, if ever, had anything to do with either. Another friend went from mechanic to a gunner on a Blackhawk, and now he's in the Air Force after going to Loadmaster School. In short: you just never know. So in that sense, yes, it's very plausible.
Most special force types don't spend a lot of time training in hand to hand combat. They get a few weeks of training at most. Most of their time is training in tactical maneuvers using modern weapons and equipment. If a seal, force recon, or special forces guy has to do hand to hand combat, then something went seriously wrong.
Based on what? I mean, that's sort-of true in the sense that each of of them is not the equivalent of some Rambo cliche, and they spend most of their time with weapons, tactics, languages, etc., but they certainly spend plenty of time in hand-to-hand combat training. It may be a question of scale....and maybe I'm misreading your post....but you almost make it sound like they're helpless. They're not necessarily MMA fighters, but they're all specially-trained soldiers, so they can more than handle their business with or without weapons/equipment.
Why was he miscast? Size? Not really an issue with movie magic. Just look at the hobbits in the Lord of the Rings movies. There's a special forces guy in my family who is 6'4.
This from people I know that trained them. Some of the guys pay for their own training outside but hand to hand is not a huge part of their regular training. I'm not saying they can't fight, I'm just saying they are not as skilled as a BJJ blue belt.
If they do that hobbit thing everybody's gonna come to watch just to laugh at Tom. That's gonna be a brutal way to end his career.
I'm in the Marine Corps infantry and no MPs are not bad asses. And no just because you are in infantry doesn't automatically make you a bad ass either. First off, unlike Infantry females are allowed to be MPs. Second their level of training and physical fitness training is not as rigorous as someone in a infantry line company. Most MPs are gate guards or hand out speeding tickets on base in patrol cars. Nothing crazy. The MPs that do deploy usually just go on convoys in already secured parts of Afghanistan and Iraq. Its the grunts who clear out the untouched areas.
Another thing of note is that many MPs lat moved into Military Police. So they could have been in infantry/recon in their first term of enlistment.
Tom Cruise is freaking Jack Reacher??? When did this happen? I like Tom Cruise and enjoy his movies but as a monster Reacher fan, this just seems wrong. That said... the strength of the novels and Tom Cruise as an action star should make it work. I don't remember all the details of "One Shot" but I don't think there was anything in that novel that made Reacher's size more advantageous. There's other novels where Cruise would be more out of place trying to play Reacher.
