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Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
| Released |
24 January 2014 |
| Director |
Kenneth Branagh |
Starring
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Chris Pine, Keira Knightley, Kevin Costner, Kenneth Branagh, Lenn Kudrjawizki, Alec Utgoff, Peter Andersson |
| Writer(s) |
Adam Cozad, David Koepp |
Producer(s)
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David Barron, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Mace Neufeld, Mark Vahradian |
| Origin |
United States, Russia |
| Running Time |
105 minutes |
| Genre |
Action, drama, thriller |
| Rating |
12A |
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Mission to Moscow.
Even given the current Hollywood predilection for remakes and reboots, a return to Tom Clancy’s most famous character is a bit of a strange one. While The Hunt for Red October, Clear and Present Danger and Patriot Games are all certainly well-known films, a lot of people probably couldn’t recall the name of Alec Baldwin’s/Harrison Ford’s protagonist.
No danger this time, since the character name is jammed right there in the title.
And this is about as much similarity with the works of Tom Clancy that Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit shares. The film isn’t based on any of Clancy’s many novels (despite a huge number of them which remain unflimed). Everything about the film – character, plot, setting – is generic in the extreme, more like a template of spy film tropes than a genuine thriller.
Chris Pine plays Jack Ryan, a CIA financial analyst who discovers something amiss in a Russian fiscal institution and jets to Moscow to uncover what exactly is going on. Like Clancy’s source novel Ryan isn’t an action hero super spy type, or at least not for the first forty minutes or so. Once the obligatory action sequences kick in Ryan suddenly morphs from nerdy analyst to full on Jason Bourne (accompanied, of course, by some very dodgy shaky hand held camerawork). At one point he stops a speeding Landover by diving in front of and smashing the windscreen with an iron bar, a move so totally improbable that it would probably still cause a few raised eyebrows if Batman did it.
If this was just a popcorn munching action fest it wouldn’t be so bad, but the film clearly has its sights set higher. Director Kenneth Branagh shows his pedigree as a director of performances when he set up some wanna-be-grand dialogue sequences, framing his actors (including himself, as the piece’s bland villain) in such a way as to give their performances a real sense of weight. Unfortunately for Branagh the script of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit isn’t exactly Shakespeare. The emotions fall continually flat. A dull sub-True Lies subplot involving Ryan not telling his girlfriend (Keira Knightly, doing her best Natalie Portman impression) about the fact that he is working for the CIA is a real low point, and drags the pace and tone of the film right down whenever it appears.
And just when Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit seems like a pretty bad film, it actually gets worse. Despite not actually being even remotely based on anything written by Clancy, it shares his uber-conservative political outlook. It offers a genuine justification for the US government spying on the social networks of its citizens, paints the CIA as noble stalwarts against an entire world that has it in for the good ol’ US of A, and, with its Russian baddies, seems not entirely aware that the cold war is actually over, since it gives no actual reason for their animosity towards the US.
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit isn’t just a bad film, it is a film so bad that it will leave you hating it for hours or even days after you’ve seen it.
- Bernard O’Rourke |
