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Chris Pine comes out from behind the desk to head into the field in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit |
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Cast: Chris Pine (Jack Ryan), Keira Knightley (Cathy
Muller), Kevin Costner (Commander Thomas Harper), Kenneth Branagh (Viktor
Cherevin), Len Kudrjawizki (Konstantin), Alec Utgoff (Aleksandr Borovsky),
Peter Andersson (Dimitri Lemkov), Elena Velikanova (Katya), Nonso Anozie (Embee
Deng), Colm Feore (Rob Behringer), Gemma Chan (Amy Chang), Mikhail Baryshnikov
(Minister Sorkin)
Jack Ryan is the all-American, ordinary-analyst-turned-CIA
Agent at the centre of the late Tom Clancy’s books. He’s been played by a range
of actors, from Alec Baldwin to Ben Affleck via Harrison Ford, but his
character remains the same – a boy scout, a man of principle and simple courage,
pushed to do what must be done. He’s smart and quick-witted. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit was meant to
serve as another reboot, to restart the Jack Ryan franchise after a mixed
reception to Ben Affleck’s The Sum of All Fears. Sadly, it was another false start.
An origins story, it opens with Ryan (Chris Pine) studying
at the LSE, before joining the marines in the wake of 9/11. He is critically
injured in a helicopter crash, where he hauls two men from the wreckage while
suffering from a broken back. Learning to walk again, he falls in love with Dr
Cathy Muller (Kiera Knightley) and is recruited as a financial analyst by
Thomas Harper (an effectively gruff but charismatic Kevin Costner) from the
CIA’s Department of Making-Sure-We-Don’t-Get-Hit-Again (catchy name).
Collecting financial intelligence while working as an auditor at a Wall Street
firm, he notices some worrying financial deals from funds controlled by Russian
tycoon Viktor Cherevin (Kenneth Branagh). Going to Moscow under the guise of
auditing Cherevin, he and Cathy quickly find themselves embroiled in a dangerous
terrorist conspiracy.
Jack Ryan: Shadow
Recruit is decent fun. It’s also a rather impersonal and safe piece of
film-making, that structurally and creatively feels like a 1990s action film
reset in the 2010s. In a world of Jason Bourne, it genuinely feels a little
old-fashioned and uninspired. It takes recognisable elements from dozens of
action films and remixes them with a certain flair, but not a lot of
imagination. It feels like the least “Branagh” film Branagh has directed, the camerawork
being surprisingly restrained and contained considering his love of sweeping
opera and dynamic, showy visuals.
But Jack Ryan is
not a bad film, it’s just an enjoyably average one. It puts Ryan
front-and-centre of the film, and Chris Pine really delivers in establishing
Ryan’s old-fashioned principles of right and wrong, his sense of duty and his
willingness to do what needs to be done when called. Pine also does a great job
of demonstrating Ryan’s fear and panic as he finds himself increasingly out of his
comfort zone – not least in a terrifying hotel bathroom brawl with an
under-used Nonso Anonzie – in the aftermath of which he drops his mobile while
trying to call for backup, and then can’t remember where the hell “Location
Gamma” is when told to report there to meet a contact.
Of course, this incarnation of Ryan as an analyst rushed into
the field doesn’t last, and the film succumbs from there to turning Ryan into
an old-school action man, the sort of guy who drives cars at 85 mph through
Moscow streets with ease, jumps on a motorbike and roars off in pursuit of a
bomb with maverick self-assurance and takes on a trained assassin with a Die Hard-ish confidence. It’s a shame
that the interesting character work of the first 2/3rd of the movie
gets lost in the final third – but it’s another sign of the film delivering what
it feels an action film should be
rather than finding something unique and original.
At least Pine gets some good material to work with, which is
more than can be said for Kiera Knightley. For all her American accent, this is
Knightley at her most British Rose, her toothy, coy grin ever-present in every
scene – and that’s about all she contributes. Not that this is entirely her
fault, since Cathy is a character sketched on a fag packet, a successful doctor
who obsessively worries that her husband is having an affair, making her feel
weaker and needier than the filmmakers perhaps realise Later she exists to be a
Damsel in Distress, and is then given a spurious involvement in identifying the
villain’s target – which she identifies not because it is a medical facility
she is familiar with, or perhaps somewhere she visited as a child or on a
professional call-out, but solely because Her Man works there. (As if these CIA
geniuses couldn’t work out that a financial terror attack on the US might be
targeting Wall Street).
The villain’s plot is dully labyrinthine, but can be safely
boiled down into having something to do with financial chicanery and a bombing
attack, to destroy the US economy. Not that it really matters – it allows a
suitable mix of booms, bangs and the sort of tense “breaking into the office to
download the files against the clock” sequence that you’ve seen several times
before. Kenneth Branagh cuts himself a bit short with Cherevin, a character who
seems sinister but is really barely competent and hits every villain trope from
pervy leering to executing an underling. We barely get any sense of his
motivations or his background.
He’s also probably the only Russian nationalist in the world
who is a Napoleon Bonaparte fan. Last time I checked, Napoleon was the enemy in the War of 1812 that redefined
Russian history for the next 100 years. But then I’ve read a few Napoleonic era
books, so I’m biased… This film clearly knows nothing about Bonaparte, with
Ryan declaring at one point that the planned attack is “straight out of
Napoleon’s playbook” – how Napoleon’s trademark fast movement and combined use
of infantry and artillery, drilled to perfection, relates to a basic
distraction strategy I don’t know but never mind. But then this is a dumb
action film that name checks Napoleon because you’ve probably heard of him,
rather than because it makes sense.
There is a lot to groan at, or say meh to, in Jack Ryan. But
yet, I’ve seen it three times and it grows on me each time. Chris Pine is a
very likeable screen presence, and the build-up of the film works well. Branagh
directs it with a taut efficiency, even if it’s a film that lacks any real
inspiration and feels like one for the money. But it presents its 1990s-style
action beats with enough conviction and sense of fun that you kinda go with it.
Yes it’s totally forgettable, but run with it and you’ll find yourself
strangely charmed by it.
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