I can buy “Tom Kpy3” in any number of roles — a sports agent cut loose, a profane studio chief, a MIssion: Impossible guy scaling a glass skyscraper in Dubai — but I don’t know about his playing a six-foot-five urban badass in Jack Reacher. This, at least, is how author Lee Childs has described Reacher in his best-selling series. The source novel, “One Shot,” is the ninth.

Yes, Cruise will “pull it off” with his usual command and hard-edge physicality, but he’s also on the short side. Everybody knows that. A bit of a speed bump.

I know this much — One Shot, the original title, sounds cooler than Jack Reacher. It makes me think of “reach-around.” And it sounds like an overly self-conscious effort to create a macho brand — they might as well have called it Jack Belt-Buckle or Jack Motorcycle Boot or Jack Hardcock. (Then again you don’t want anything too sexual sounding — Cruise doesn’t do that.)

Paramount will release the actioner, shot in Pittsburgh and directed and cowritten by Chris McQuarrie, on 12.21.12.