The idea of watching a movie in which a sniper methodically crafts his own bullets, practices weekly at a gun range, then waits quietly in an empty parking garage before shooting five people dead may not sound like the most appealing form of entertainment during these tragic days.

Nevertheless, it’s important to assess “Jack Reacher” on its own terms, for what it is and what it isn’t. Besides being caught in some unfortunate timing, it’s also clever, well-crafted and darkly humorous, and it features one of those effortless bad-ass performances from Tom Cruise that remind us that he is indeed a movie star, first and foremost.

OK, so maybe Cruise doesn’t exactly resemble the Reacher of British novelist Lee Child’s books: a 6-foot-5, 250-pound, blond behemoth. If you haven’t read them, you probably won’t care. Even if you have read them, Christopher McQuarrie’s film – the first he’s directed and written since 2000’s “The Way of the Gun” – moves so fluidly and with such confidence, it’ll suck you in from the start.