The story of this film is banal. Several random killings occur, but one of the victims was intentionally chosen for business reasons. The suspect of committing crimes is a former U.S. military who have committed similar crimes in the past. All the evidence put the suspect at the scene, but the real killer is someone else.

Convened by the action of the suspect, Jack Reacher (also former U.S. military) know the lawyer and the suspect starts to help her. But in doing so he becomes an enemy of those who want to cover up the murder committed intentionally. First, a group of bad boys is hired to beat up the hero. As this does not work, the real criminals, a gang of gunmen in the service of a Russian mobster who has a construction company, killing a girl to incriminate Jack Reacher.

After fights, shootings and car chases, the hero can discover the whole truth. The criminals are all dead with the help of another former U.S. military. The cop investigating the random murders, that actually provided services to Russian mobsters, is also dead.

Racism in the movie Jack Reacher is not very evident. But are printed between the lines.

The hero is a white Anglo-American former military. The villains are Russians who employ criminal means to achieve business objectives. The cop who helps them is black guy. It is true: in the car chase scene, another black guy helps Jack Reacher slightly, but the overall picture of the movie is highly racist. The white Anglo-Americans characters are good, virtuous and pursue truth and justice (Jack Reacher, the lawyer and the prosecutor ); Russians are criminals and the bad cop is black. The only good black guy in the movie do not "acts", he lets the white guy keep acting.

Another relevant aspect of the film is that it raises serious doubts about the American Legal System. In this film the U.S. Justice does not deserve any credit because it allows that an innocent man is framed with fabricated evidence. It also allows criminals commit crimes getting away with it. The black cop is corrupt and unreliable. The solution is disrespect the Law, and only a white Anglo-American former military is able to distinguish what is right from what is wrong and what is more important, kill and die for what is right.

Under the textual layers the movie hides a really dangerous idea: that in a heterogeneous society like the U.S. (with whites, blacks and Russian immigrants, etc...) only the dominance of white element guarantees truth, justice and the security of Legal System still that through the intentional breach of the Law. Ultimately, the movie literally says that the "Rule of Law" in a racially heterogeneous country like the U.S. is not a viable option. There is or this is just an offshoot of the old racism of white Anglo-Americans who want to dominate anyway and use art to convey this idea?