Review: Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

by Trevor Kirkendall

★★½

“Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” is a reboot of the famous Tom Clancy character who has already appeared on the silver screen four other times. While I generally balk at the idea of reboots because they demonstrate a complete lack of originality or willingness to take a risk from the Hollywood studios, this is one I was actually kind of interested in seeing. The result? It’s quite enjoyable despite it’s boring script.

Since this is an origin story, “Shadow Recruit” opens with Jack Ryan (Chris Pine) back in college working on his PhD in England in 2001. He watches the horror of the 9/11 terror attacks unfold and decides to abandon his studies and join the Marines. Sometime later, Lieutenant Ryan is serving in Afghanistan when a helicopter he’s in is hit with a missile. He survives, but spends a great deal of time learning to walk again at Walter Reed. He’s being helped by a medical student, Cathy Muller (Keira Knightley). Ryan likes her, but she won’t date a patient; famous last words during a typical meet-cute like this.

Keeping a close eye on Ryan’s recovery is CIA operative Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner). He’s read Ryan’s college essays and thinks he’s smart enough to assist the CIA in counter terrorist measures. He asks Ryan to return to school and complete his PhD, after which time they’ll covertly place him into a Wall Street firm where he will monitor foreign accounts to see who is funding terrorist cells.  This brings us to the present, ten years later. Ryan works for a firm in New York. He lives with Cathy, who is now a doctor. They’re engaged to be married but she’s not ready to commit (since when is it the woman who isn’t ready to commit in movies?). And since they’re not married, Ryan can’t tell her he secretly works for the CIA.

One day, Ryan notices an abnormality with some holdings from a Russian firm they oversee. The firm is run by Viktor Cherevin (Kenneth Branagh). His suspicions are correct because it turns out Viktor hates America and wants to destroy it by selling off trillions of dollars in holdings which would plunge the United States into a second Great Depression. This would be timed perfectly to follow a massive terror strike on the US by a Russian sleeper cell. Ryan raises his concern with the CIA who tells him to go to Moscow himself for an audit. Once he gets there, things get ugly. Cherevin’s company suspects his reason for coming to Moscow rather than doing this over the phone and takes all the necessary measures to eliminate the threat they think Ryan poses.

The Jack Ryan character is certainly an interesting one and Tom Clancy left behind a wealth of material for Hollywood to draw on, but “Shadow Recruit” comes from none of those stories. Instead, writers Adam Cozad and David Koepp take the characteristics Clancy gave Ryan in the novels, updated it for 2014 and created a brand new story line. They’ve also given Ryan a little bit of the Jason Bourne DNA by making him more of an action hero instead of a pencil pusher.

We’ve seen the character already in four other movies, all based on Clancy novels: “The Hunt for Red October” in 1990 with Alec Baldwin as Ryan, “Patriot Games” in 1992 and “Clear and Present Danger” in 1994 with Harrison Ford, and “The Sum of All Fears” in 2002 with Ben Affleck taking over the role. I personally think Baldwin played it best and “Red October” is the best of all the Ryan films, including “Shadow Recruit”. In each of these films, Ryan isn’t an action hero. He’s just an analyst dropped into difficult situations. That all changes here.

And it’s not necessarily a bad thing either. The story is a bit thick and a maybe a little too complex. Focusing the primary conflict on economics isn’t exactly the easiest way to win over your audience. The story tries to make the stakes incredibly high for Ryan and the CIA, but half the audience might be lost in the processes. It’s not until about halfway through the second act when things start to pick up. Once they do, the whole economic destruction premise is tossed out the window in favor of high octane action sequences and other suspenseful moments.

Director Branagh is a competent action director, already evident from his work on “Thor”. He doesn’t really improve on anything with “Shadow Recruit” but he does maintain his consistency as a big budget studio director. These types of films are obviously slightly more involved than the Shakespeare adaptations we’re used to seeing from him. Even the best directors out there show their inexperience with filming big action sequences for the first time (see Christopher Nolan’s hand-to-hand combat scenes in “Batman Begins” and compare them to “The Dark Knight” – vast improvements). Branagh shows no learning curve.

He’s also solid on the other side of the camera too. Again, this is no surprise. The man is a natural talent. I had no concerns about him as an actor in this film. I did have reservations about Chris Pine though. I was worried he might play this role similar to that of James Tiberius Kirk, but he does not. He’s an acceptable action star, although I would have never guessed that a few years ago when he was doing things like “Just My Luck” and “Blind Dating”. He’s comfortable here, but he’s not given much to work with in the way of actual dramatic acting. If sequels follow, I wonder if they’ll continue to make Ryan a Bourne-like action hero, or if they’ll play into his back story and relationships more the way the early films and (presumably) the novels show.

There’s nothing groundbreaking being done in “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit”. It’s just a relatively enjoyable action film with a mediocre screenplay. That’s pretty typical of just about every action film we’re given each year. The screening I saw for this film was on an IMAX screen which added very little to movie. Knowing that, this is probably very doable on your own TV; you won’t miss much seeing it on a smaller screen. Furthermore, I’m not sure audiences are going to leave this film clamoring for any kind of follow up. If they give us one, I’m sure it’ll be enjoyable, but I’m not going to be hoping for one. And I’m sure I’m not going to be alone with that thought either.