It is because they recognized he was Tom Cruise and who wouldn't help Tom Cruise? duh!

It is because they recognized he was Tom Cruise and who wouldn't help Tom Cruise? duh!

2 reasons.
because f the police, duh.
and, because it was hilarious in the trailer. i love that scene

Had Jack Reacher been played by Don Cheadle.. this scene would have been MUCH harder to believe.
Really? I'd think it'd be even easier to believe. Cheadle has a lot of the same "cool cat" attitude that Cruise conveys.
Steve Buscemi or Chris Tucker on the other hand

OP must be a racial minority.. because this is pretty much par for the course for good looking white people
Had Jack Reacher been played by Don Cheadle.. this scene would have been MUCH harder to believe.

black guys don't trust cops and reacher was running from the law.
"Gold buys a mans silence for a time. A bolt to the heart buys it forever"

Way I see it, he pulled an Assassin's Creed move. In pursuit by cops, casually walks up to a crowd and with the hat, blends in nice and easy.
Finally deleted my old sig and I don't know what to putso, Hail Hydra! Heil?uh..go team!

lmfaoHe's edgey manHe's cool, he's hipHe won't conform to the rules man. smh.

It's a movie. Not a documentary. Super hot girls date losers in movies. And guys can get shot 3 times and be okay 2 days later. Action movies always have these scenes. Watch Die Hard 3. It's filled with super extreme unlikely scenes.

Really, what does a rapist "look like"?
I liked the movie too, but that scene was purely awful.

He was clearly not a rapist. They could see that he was a nice guy with a good car and nice clothes. And in the hoods you don't have as much love for the police as in the white suburbs. Maaaaan this movie is so awesome. I want to see it again.

It's a cool thing to help someone running from the cops?
Does that include car jackers? Rapists? Escaped lunatics?
Are you seriously out of your freaking mind?

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Ask yourself this. If you was in exactly the same situation what would you do? I would do the same thing. Just because it's a cool thing to do.

Among the more disenfranchised, you will find an extremely low percent of people that will help the cops.
I mean you can straight up rob a liquor store and someone will see your face clearly. In quite a few circumstances if that person is from the wrong side of the tracks so to speak he won't help the cops identify you at all. The guy that is working there is a more likely target obviously, but they just have such an anti-narc mentality that protecting criminals happens all the time.

because Stop Snitchin'!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Snitchin'

because he was a dumbass.

Really, so the next time you see a car being chased by the police, you can figure out if he is guilty or not?
Astonishing!

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Thanks, transmentalist, for the only sane answer in this thread.
The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe.

This is probably the best answer.
I did not know the answer and I thought it was stupid.
Think about it someone like Tom Cruise walking up to them.
What he does is cool. he looks them straight in the eye he was saying I am going to trust you guys that it because he knows they know the police are dirty.
He looks at them and they look at him from the care and the way he leaves the car its like taking refuge and they just react to that.
A rapist would not have the guts to do that only an innocent man or someone who has not done such a crime like trying to escape a ticket.

I suggested this in another thread when the idea was still sort of coalescing in my head.
In the earlier scene, Reacher explains what he's come to understand about how people of America aren't truly "free."
He also goes on about situational/tactical awareness.
It's therefore thematically and logically consistent for Reacher to abandon his car in exactly the part of town where he knows people DON'T trust the police, and ARE likely to help him, especially if he presents himself as cool and collected, the authority-resisting rogue rather than the frantic fleeing felon.
In other words, he was smart enough to seek shelter among people he knew would protect him.
He would not, for example, have sought shelter with the two earlier posters who claim they would not have helped him, because they most likely don't live in those neighborhoods, taking those buses, getting hassled by those cops.

I thought that scene was poignant social commentary. Hollywood was trying to send a message to the powers that be that they believe common folk are no longer on their side.
What is interesting is
that the instinct of the people turned out to be right considering it was the dirty cop that was trying to catch him. If he had, Reacher would be dead. So the message is: trust the instincts of the general public. They can sense who is good and evil

Yeah that scene really annoyed me. For all the Dude at the bus stop knew Reacher could have been a nonce or a rapist. Ridiculous.
Duty Now For The Future