Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014)

Starring: Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Keira Knightley, Kenneth Branagh, Colm Feore, Gemma Chan, and David Paymer
Grade: B-

I hate the fact that Colm Feore was hired as Jack Ryan’s Wall Street boss when in The Sum of All Fears, Feore plays the South African arms dealer who’s partially responsible for causing World War III. You’re telling me you couldn’t find anyone else to play Jack’s boss in this reboot?

Summary

It’s September 11th, 2001, at the London School of Economics in London, England. A young Jack Ryan (Pine) wakes up from a nap inside a park area on campus and starts seeing some commotion around the school. He rushes inside a building to see the attack on New York on the news. As a response, Jack enlists in the Marines and 18 months later in 2003, he’s in a helicopter in Afghanistan. While in the helicopter with his fellow soldiers, he gets a call from his superior and asks if they forwarded his report on the Saabir Khan Bridge to anyone in intel. Though it’s the same report as before, he can’t help but notice the correlation between traffic patterns there and the regions nearby. Unfortunately, he’s cut off even though he was just trying to help. One of the soldiers asks Jack why he requested this detail when he’s smart enough to be behind a desk somewhere, but Jack simply states that he figured if he was going to serve, this is how he was going to do it. As the three soldiers have a playful conversation and Jack tries to help one guy with his seatbelt, the helicopter is shot down and they crash below. Jack is barely alive from the attack, with two shattered vertebrae and no feeling in his legs. Somehow, he managed to drag the other two soldiers out to safety even despite this. The doctor says they have a 90-minute window if Jack ever wants to walk again, and he’s quickly shipped off to safety.

Eight months later at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, a somewhat recovered Jack is in a physical therapy session with Cathy Muller (Knightley), a third-year medical student who is four credits short in P.T. until Jack is able to walk. He’s frustrated as hell with her, but she responds politely as possible, trying to push him. On the upper level of the building, Commander Thomas Harper (Costner) of the U.S. Navy asks a doctor if Jack will ever walk again without the crutches, and the doctor says it’s possible. As Harper says he wants to talk to him but not yet, Jack pulls himself up once Cathy comes back. Later, Harper approaches Jack when he’s alone. Immediately, Jack asks why Harper is in full uniform because he’s aware of Harper spying on him during his rehab and wearing a regular suit and tie while doing it. After Harper name-drops Jack’s dissertation that he only finished two-thirds of and the three separate reports of the traffic patterns near the Saabir Khan Bridge, he says it’s all impressive work. He goes to leave, so Jack asks him how he got ahold of his work. Harper whispers to him almost jokingly that he’s in the CIA. As the night closes, Jack is approached by Cathy. She has finally graduated and is done with P.T. work, so Jack congratulates her. He asks her out (in a very smooth way I might add), and though she temporarily turns him down, she makes him a deal. The day he runs out of the rehab center, they’ll have dinner “and split the check”. He wishes her good luck and goes on a jog in the rain. Eventually, he runs right by Harper, who’s standing there inside a building where the doors are open for some reason. Noticing the ominousness of his appearance, Jack realizes Harper is actually in the CIA, which he confirms.

Right away, Harper asks Jack why he didn’t finish his Ph.D., and Jack blames it on enlisting in the Marines. Knowing this, Harper admits Jack carried himself like a hero. He offers a suggestion to still serve his country. He wants to send Jack back to school to get his doctorate, get him a job in Financial Intelligence as an analyst, and he’ll work in a series of private banks on Wall Street, where he will use his position to uncover funding for terror groups. It will be a covert job, so he can’t tell anyone about what he does. His employers won’t know he’ll be working for Harper and the CIA, and neither will any of his loved ones. When Jack asked what unit Harper works for, Harper simply states they are the ones that will make sure they won’t get “hit” again.

Ten years later in New York City, Jack goes to work on Wall Street. He runs into his co-worker Teddy (Seth Ayott) outside, and Teddy shows off his motorcycle. Jack tells Teddy that the girl he likes in the office is Sarah (Hannah Taylor Gordon), outing this as the reason he bought the bike. In the office, Jack sends Sarah to work with Teddy on some project and glances over at him with a smile when he goes into his private office. The analyst is now at work, and he looks over stocks diligently. At the United Nations Headquarters, Dixon Lewis (Paymer) tells another that the only thing the Turks and Georgians would undermine with their pipeline is Russia’s monopoly on the Eastern European natural gas market. The guy warns Lewis that if they block their proposal and the pipeline is approved, oil falls below $79 a barrel and the Russian government will go bankrupt. Their request comes from the country’s highest level. Lewis doesn’t back down, so the guy sees this as an act of economic war. At a showing of 1948’s Sorry, Wrong Number, Jack meets in a movie theater with his source. Jack says they’ll need someone in Moscow, but the guy counters by saying they’ll want Jack. However, Jack insists he’s just an analyst.

Yeah, we’ve heard that one before.

Moving on, Jack points out that their Russian partners are hiding accounts from them, and he gives the guy the data in an envelope. The guy grabs it but tells him to go to Moscow because Harper will want him. At their apartment, Cathy wonders where Jack is because they’re now deep into their relationship. She puts away some of his clothes after her shower and sees the movie ticket in his pocket. At dinner in some restaurant, Cathy suggests they go see Sorry, Wrong Number at the Film Forum to test him. Jack agrees to it, but when she asks if he’s ever seen it, he changes the subject. In Moscow, Russia, oligarch Viktor Cherevin (Branagh) is injected some sort of medicine administered by a doctor in his house. However, he’s bothered by the guy, so he beats him down and has him taken away. Then, he gets a call to meet with Interior Minister Sergey Sorokin (Mikhail Baryshnikov), so they meet somewhere in a secluded forest. Sorokin tells Viktor he warned everyone at the U.N. and how it was a mistake for them to force a vote. He asks Viktor if he started moving assets when the vote went against them, and he confirms it. Next, Sorokin reaffirms the Kremlin must remain entirely distanced from what he does, as the Russian government is unaware of such activities or operations. Jack’s Wall Street boss Rob Behringer (Feore) meets with Jack over Jack’s idea that they have to go to Moscow because of the hidden accounts he noticed that are unnamed, uncategorized, and scattered all over the world. Each one is just labeled “Cherevin Group; Khorobask Holdinds” with large sums of money attached to the transfers. There could possibly be more. Rob says it’s Jack’s call, but he begs him to not screw up the most lucrative partnership the company has ever had. Rob tells him Viktor is completely unpredictable and insider trading is legal in Russia.

According to Rob, Russia is not a country. They are a corporation.

At home, Jack prepares for his trip to Moscow but tells Cathy she shouldn’t come because it would be boring, and he would be working the entire time. Then, she suggests they go to Paris. She can take some time off, and they can meet there when he’s done in Russia. Things start to break down though after Jack’s non-response. She asks what it takes to get to vacation with him, and he responds by telling her to marry him and they can call it a honeymoon. Immediately after, she asks why Jack didn’t tell her about the movie and accuses him of having an affair. He flips out, saying he saw the movie by himself. He’s a compliance officer, so he does everything by himself. Cathy freaks and suggests he quit his job if he can’t handle it. When things cool down, Jack agrees to go to Paris with her after his trip.

At the Domodedovo Airport in Moscow, Russia, Jack is approached by private security for the Cherevin Group in Embee Deng (Nonso Anozie). He is Jack’s protective detail and driver. As they walk, Deng tells him he’s from Uganda, as Viktor only hires foreigners for security, so he knows they’re not FSB. Deng takes him to his hotel, and Jack tells him he can handle it from here, but Deng insists he has to check the room. After checking in, they get to the room together. Soon after he enters, Deng tries to shoot Jack. Jack is able to elude him for a bit until they get into a huge fight in the bathroom, with Jack managing to drown him in the bathtub, killing him. Jack quickly goes to the roof and calls for help. He alerts an unknown person on the other end of his situation, and the woman gives him immediate instructions on when to leave and where to go. During this, Cathy tries to call, but he ignores it. He’s still in panic mode, but the girl on the phone reminds him he’s a Marine and that’s why he’s still alive, which instills some confidence in him. That night, Jack proceeds with his instructions to a point but gets suspicious of a car following him. As he does, he answers Cathy’s call. After some general conversation and vague responses about work from Jack, she tells him she got a co-worker to cover the weekend for her. She could get on a plane tonight and be in Paris in the morning. When she asks if it’s possible if he can get away early, Jack is getting increasingly worried about his surroundings, saying he probably won’t be able to make it to Paris at all. He promises to call in the morning, but he assures Cathy that he loves her “desperately” and pleads with her to not lose faith in him before hanging up.

At Staraya Square, Jack meets with Harper. Harper, sitting with a dog he stole from someone’s yard, can see Jack is still shaking from killing Deng. He admits the first person he ever killed was innocent. She was a bystander that came up behind him too quick. Changing the subject, he asks what Jack’s memo was all about. Jack tells him that two weeks ago, he “noticed a series of accounts in our Russian partner’s records to which are company’s computers are denied access. Massive currency accounts, all in US treasuries. Cherevin made a total commitment to U.S. dollars when there’s been a hurricane in the Gulf and a string of negative economic reports. It’s external sterilized intervention”. This means the dollar should be going down, but it’s up, a few cents every day the past week. Jack thinks they’re propping America up because he has a theory there is a coordinated plot within Russia to collapse the dollar and crash the U.S. economy. It will happen soon, and it will be timed to follow a terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Harper doesn’t think so because the Russians will lose a lot too, but Jack insists the Chinese will lose more. Once Russia starts to sell, the rest of the world will dump every dollar they have. In this hypothetical, Russia will recover, and the U.S. won’t because they don’t have Russia’s oil reserves. He compares it to the Panic of 1837, the Panic of 1893, and the Soviet Famine of 1932. Basically, it’ll turn into the Second Great Depression. The attack and the sell-off have to be timed to each other though. Massive series of transactions like that have to be programmed in advance and stored in Cherevin’s system.

Once Jack starts the audit at Viktor’s, he can get the date and time of the attack down to the minute to prevent this potential catastrophe.

For now, Harper tells him to stick to the scheduled audit for tomorrow so everything is official and public. Also, Jack’s hotel room is officially clean, and Harper will put a watch on it to make sure things are cool. Before he leaves, Jack is frustrated, saying Harper sold this as an office job. Harper gives him a gun and says he’s not just an analyst anymore. He’s operational now. Jack goes back to the hotel room to find the entire place completely clean, with no remnants of anything involving Deng or Jack killing him. He texts Cathy that he loves her, and she reciprocates. While at church, Viktor makes his intentions clear saying to himself that he will avenge Russia, he will avenge his family, and America will bleed. Then, he takes a phone call once he leaves. It’s confirmed that everything is in place in America and Russia, so he says, “Let it begin”. Now, the official audit begins, with Jack going directly to meet with Viktor under the guise from his company. However, the real chess match between the two is beginning, as both know they are there to stop the other, though lack of evidence from both sides prevents them from making an official move.

With Viktor working diligently to ruin America’s economy with a terrorist attack, Jack works even harder to try and figure out a way to stop his plan in its tracks. Only complicating matters further is Cathy’s surprise visit to Russia soon after…

My Thoughts:

Taking elements of the Mission: Impossible and Bourne films to spice up the Jack Ryan franchise for the modern era, our hero turns into a full-fledged field agent, a stark departure from the previous films in the series and the core of the character. Because of this, I’m torn on Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. Though it’s still a very solid action movie and the protagonist becomes the action hero I’ve always wanted him to be, it becomes clear that this doesn’t coincide with what Tom Clancy’s character is supposed to be. This was the film in which my eyes opened to who the character really is and as a result, pales in comparison (in terms of entertainment factor) to other spy franchises. The reason he’s different from guys like Ethan Hunt, Jason Bourne, or even James Bond is because of how much desk work is involved. First and foremost, Jack is an analyst whether we like it or not. Sure, circumstances turn him into a part-time action hero, but the balance between the two is very important and truer to the character written extensively in Clancy’s novels. This is why as an action movie fan, Kenneth Branagh’s take on the famed character is an exciting one that brings Jack into the conversation of his fictional character peers. However, is this really a Jack Ryan movie, or is it an identity-less, run-of-the-mill, awesome but ultimately forgettable action movie? It teeters the line more than any previous entry of the series, despite potentially passing them in terms of breathtaking action sequences and pure exhilaration regarding the mission at hand.

Continuing with the trend of solid casting, Chris Pine slides into the role of our protagonist rather nicely. Cementing his action hero status, Pine checks all the boxes on who Jack Ryan is supposed to be while making him the field agent he should have always been. The romance with Keira Knightley’s Cathy was nice (his “buy me dinner” pickup line was smooth as hell), and his love for her really made what could have been a regular car chase sequence an inspiring “hero” moment that made the loving Jack a total badass as well. For the record, if Ben Affleck was given more of the opportunities Pine got in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, we would have been talking about him in a much more positive light coming out of The Sum of All Fears. Even so, Pine was a great choice to make the character and potential sequels something more thrilling and conducive for the 2010s era of action films. Again, the only reason that it didn’t succeed at a higher level is that it lost the identity of the franchise and didn’t do enough to separate itself from a market saturated by “superspy” movies. Though some have argued that Chris Pine’s take on the character became too good too fast at being operational, I was okay with it for a few reasons. First of all, once he kills Deng as soon as he steps into Moscow, all bets are off. This makes or breaks you in a situation like this, and since Jack already has combat experience, this event making him take that extra level and get more serious about the implications of this mission despite the initial scare works in context. It’s like he crossed the threshold and has no choice but to look forward, not back. Additionally, we know of the exploits of Jack Ryan. Movie heroes are built differently. This is why things revolve around them and why they aren’t supporting characters. They are willing to take that next step and push forward for the sake of those around. Additionally, he’s well versed in the CIA at this point despite the lack of field experience, so he had to retain some useful information or traits of what he would consider makes a good agent. It’s inevitable.

Yes, his fight with Viktor’s son may be a little hard to believe because of his lack of fight experience, but he’s no slouch either. Plus, he uses his environment a lot in the climactic battle, and he’s able to turn another gear mentally because he knows he’s fighting for the lives of thousands in New York City. It’s more or less a combination of adrenaline, belief, and knowing that you can’t fail, and it pushes the character to the next level. Adrenaline and dedication can turn one into a superhero in the right moments, and the audience sees it on full display here on a few occasions.

A major part of Jack Ryan’s backstory is the injuries he suffered in a plane crash in his younger years. They only talk about in the Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford films, and though the character survives one under different circumstances when Ben Affleck played him, the best representation of it was here in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. In a brutal scene showcasing the aftermath of the crash, we get a close-up on Jack practically on his death bed as he screams in pain. The moment is short, but the rush of feelings and weakness in your own body as you see the breathing tubes attached to the fully awake Jack, who yells inaudible muffled noises, is all we need to see how massive this moment is for our main character and to show us his ability to overcome adversity in the most dire of circumstances. Though I have no clue how he was able to drag the other two soldiers out of the helicopter with him to safety, despite having no feeling in his legs and two shattered vertebrae, it’s just a hiccup in reminding audiences that Jack Ryan is a hero that goes the extra mile and can pull off the impossible. I’ll also give credit to this fifth film in the series for making Cathy a much more important figure in the main story. Considering Keira Knightley is the biggest star to play the role of Jack’s future wife, you couldn’t just have her be a bystander, though in most Jack Ryan adventures she would be. However, they go about things all wrong. Early on, Cathy gets skeptical of her boyfriend’s true intentions and whereabouts which results in her thinking Jack is cheating on her. This is totally understandable, as a lot of signs point to it despite the viewer knowing she is wrong. With this being said, even the most suspicious of women, especially one who is a doctor and works as many hours as she does, does not up and fly to Russia to try and catch her man in the act.

This is insane behavior, and Cathy is not this person at all going into this huge moment in the movie. When she’s waiting in Jack’s hotel room and starts monologuing, Knightley plays the scene with serious crazy energy that doesn’t suit the character, the moment, or the movie. For about a minute, it seems as if she is going to shoot him. Then, she changes her tune in an instant when she shows Jack that she found his gun. Following this, her inclusion in the story felt as forced as a square peg in a round hole in terms of logistics. My only explanation for it is because of Knightley’s star power demands her to be used more rather than it making sense within the context of the story. Why would Harper risk including someone who has no experience whatsoever in subterfuge or espionage when he’s already risking a lot with Jack and his lack of experience. Jack is at least somewhat worth the risk because he works for the CIA, but why risk it with Cathy? She’s a fucking doctor! All she has going for her is a combination of moxie and confidence, but it more exists out of spite towards Jack, which inspires her to push to be a part of the mission. Why? What is inspiring this doctor at this very moment to become a pseudo-CIA agent with her life on the line? The only reason she was mad in the first place was because she thought Jack was cheating on her, but now that he admits to her that he was in the CIA, why doesn’t she act like a normal fucking person? Why can’t Cathy realize she fucked up and is now risking everyone’s lives by being here and not trusting her partner? Why does she take this moment where she was in the wrong, as a green light to include herself, act all tough, and to be a part of the danger that she has no business being in?

Her serious lack of accountability and attitude does remind me of an ex-girlfriend so it makes Cathy somewhat realistic in her unnecessary vindictiveness, but in the case of facing someone that can kill both of them, I don’t see why Cathy suddenly has balls of steel when this trait of her character was never alluded to her anywhere previously in the film. Adding to the frustration of this pivotal scene is Jack being the only one with some sense as he tells Harper that he doesn’t want Cathy involved. This prompts Cathy to say Jack involved her by not telling her about his career, still playing the victim card as if it means anything at this point and being a fucking spy isn’t the definition of an exception. Seriously, how the fuck does any of Cathy’s dialogue make any sense in this scene? She goes, “If you told me who you were, I wouldn’t be here!”. He took a fucking oath! You can’t tell a random girlfriend about this job, only your wife! How can she not see that? Then, when Jack tells her he couldn’t say anything unless they were married, she uses this against him too and goes, “Oh, so that’s why you wanted to marry me?”. Obviously not! What kind of dumbass reaction is that? Anyone with a shred of intelligence can tell Jack likes Cathy just by observing them from afar. Considering the fact that he just admitted to her he’s in the CIA and this is why he hasn’t told her certain things, his love for her is confirmed in this moment. It doesn’t take a doctor’s intellect to see that. Having the sheer audacity to even think Cathy is in the right to assume Jack only wanted to marry her just so he can share his little secret is moronic! At this moment, it became clear that Cathy is 100% in the wrong and desperately needed to shut the fuck up. She needed to step back and say, “You know what? I’m sorry. I was wrong. I didn’t realize you were selfishly trying to protect the United States of America without telling me. This one is on me”.

Continuing the outrageousness, Harper, who watched this entire conversation take place in front of him while offering little to nothing to calm the situation, simply takes Cathy’s side because Viktor would know something is up if she doesn’t show up.

Are you kidding me? Fuck off.

You can’t sit there and convince me that they couldn’t think of a single scenario to avoid including Cathy in this mission that is putting the entire United States at risk. No one in their right mind would authorize this. They didn’t prep Cathy for it, they didn’t give her a weapon, or an out of any kind in case they have to abort. They just assume that since Viktor knows of her existence, they can’t risk her not showing up for dinner because he may know something is fishy. You can’t just say she has jet lag? Even if he insists Cathy appears and women are his weakness (join the club), and the CIA deem her absolutely necessary to this stage of the mission, the lack of precaution they take with her while giving her nothing to defend or protect herself in case something goes awry is startling. No advice is given to her whatsoever, yet she’s entrusted with full confidence as they hope for the best. This is a little too hard to believe. If anything, her getting kidnapped was needed because the CIA was getting way too cocky with this mission. They needed a kick in the ass to scare them. Up until this point, things were going way too smoothly, with the exception of Viktor ordering the companies that made the audit necessary, to be sold at a profit screwing the initial plans because Jack can’t audit what they don’t own.

Going along with the unnecessary risks taken, there’s no reason why Jack had to be the one to break into Viktor’s office. The information he had to get from Rob could have still been gotten from his phone calls, but the actual act of him breaking into Viktor’s place could have been done by literally any agent on the payroll. Why risk Jack for this moment when you know he’s never done anything like this before? All Harper does is give Jack a drive to plug into any “220 outlet that shares the same wall with Demitri” allowing for them to use the building’s electrical wiring to access Demitri’s hard drive. All they need is 6 minutes to run the program. With the exception of the aforementioned phone call Jack had to make to Rob back in New York to get the partner-level, ABA dodge to access the group file code, he wasn’t needed to do both parts of this mission. If anything, they wasted a serious amount of time having Jack walk to Viktor’s building when he could have continued annoying Viktor at the restaurant. When it was time to make that crucial phone call, he could have just excused himself to the bathroom. When he starts to take too long, and Viktor’s bodyguard goes in to check on Jack to add to the intensity of the situation, he could’ve just finished up in time to send the information to whoever was on the scene. This would have been a great time for Tom Clancy’s John Clark to make an appearance to pull off this part of the mission. Hell, Harper himself could have done it. Kevin Costner was practically begging to do more in the role anyway. Him just being a sniper in the heat of the action was underutilizing him heavily. Sure, the van scene was an amusing moment when Jack tells Harper and the other agent to tell their guy that once he’s in Viktor’s office, he needs to “enable all encrypted financial sell order packages” but cuts himself off when he realizes he’s the guy who’s going to do it. Nonetheless, when we watch Jack go through the plan of having Cathy distract Viktor at dinner and him going through the process, any trained agent could have done it.

Even in his advanced age, Harper could have done it with ease. This is just the tip of the iceberg with Harper though, as his demand out of Jack to perform when it shouldn’t always rely on him in these situations start to frustrate the viewer. It doesn’t matter if Jack pulls it off or not, he’s been lied to at every angle and everything is constantly thrown in his direction for him to solve, despite Harper acting like he knows everything about this job. It begs the question as to why Harper doesn’t do something useful for a change! Look, I love Kevin Costner and like him playing the mentor role (on paper) for Jack Ryan, a role he would’ve nailed himself in his prime, but they write the character so coldly and unapologetic, considering most of what is happening is his fault, that he starts to piss you off. After Jack murdered Deng with his bare hands, Harper’s cold delivery of “You okay?” afterwards felt like he was going to follow-up this sentence by calling him a pussy.

From a direction standpoint, I enjoyed what Kenneth Branagh did. There was a different, very Branagh-esque feel to certain moments throughout, especially in scenes between Jack and Viktor. Branagh plays on the character’s sophistication and class well, with wide shots showcasing the blocking while focusing in on certain details like his Napolean painting by Bogdan Willewalde. The direction adds a lot to their first conversation, as the tension is felt heavily with their polite but somewhat confrontational and sharp responses, giving off the feeling they’re both onto each other in a very subtle manner. You can feel the chess pieces start to move as they talk. It starts with Jack calling his presence at Viktor’s a “routine audit”, and Viktor responds inquisitively asking, “So routine, you couldn’t do it in New York?”. Without missing a beat when most would, Chris Pine’s reaction time, understated toughness in the role, and confidence as the Jack Ryan we know start to show as he simply states, “Not when you’re concealing accounts from us”. Several pawns on the chess board are now on the front lines, and moments like this show the potential of both characters, more so on the part of our antagonist as he can sense Jack’s cunning. In a way, this shows the audience how intelligent Viktor is too because he has that good of a judge of character. However, the villain he plays just comes off a little too cliché. You know exactly who I’m taking about. He’s the typical Russian antagonist who strives to bring power and glory back to Russia as a superpower by attacking America. Even when he’s threatening Jack over the phone in the car chase sequence and he starts to talk about how his country bled, I just rolled my eyes as if to say, “Here we go. The classic nationalistic Russian villain that will do anything for his country”.

With the exception of Viktor putting a light bulb in Cathy’s mouth (something I’ve never seen before), everything he does from an antagonistic standpoint is a classic case of been there, done that. The only interesting part of his characterization is that he’s already dying because of his cirrhosis of the liver, so he doesn’t have much to lose. In Tenet, he plays virtually the same character, Russian and all. He’s just as stereotypical, and he’s dying and has nothing to lose. At least in Christopher Nolan’s mind-boggling sci-fi thriller, he was a bit more menacing. In Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, the only other intriguing detail to his character is the fact that he sent his thought-to-be-deceased son to America years in advance in preparation for his diabolically intricate plan, though it seems a little far-fetched and less important to the threats of nuclear war in previous movies. As a fan though, I’ll give it a pass because you have to give Jack Ryan variety in each movie’s mission. The threat of world annihilation can get tired. Just ask the superhero genre…

*You want to know what the magic of acting is? The English Keira Knightley playing an American, speaking to the Irish Kenneth Branagh playing a Russian. The bizarre reality of this moment was not lost on me. Only the art of acting can give us such fun moments like this.*

When they get back to America right before the climax, the CIA wants to send Cathy home and rightfully so as her job is done, but she wants to go to the hospital because they might need her? Yeah? Buuuuuuuuulllllllsssssshhhiiitt! There is not a single human in existence that wouldn’t use this very moment as an excuse to take the day off.

Spare me.

With this all being said, there’s still a lot of good in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. Though it’s not as good as the spy movie peers it tries to emulate while working hard at the goal of modernizing the lore of Jack Ryan, it’s still a very solid action movie, and it does enough for you to be interested in a sequel that will sadly never come to fruition. The third act in New York is electric and it really all comes together in a frenetic finish that sets apart Chris Pine’s Jack Ryan from all the others. Unfortunately, as I said before, it’s very different from all of the previous entries of the series because they stray away from the core of the character by making him fully operational. For Tom Clancy purists, this will anger them as it misses half of who the character is supposed to be. For movie fans who don’t get bothered by certain details, they’ll enjoy Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit for what it is, a fun but arguably unmemorable action movie whose style is done better by its counterparts. What makes the Jack Ryan character and series what they are is the equal amount of time spent on story, analysis, and action to prevent catastrophe. This was the identity of the Ryanverse and why previous incarnations were more memorable than this one, despite the celebrated dedication to action in this entry that they do so well here. Once the end credits came across the scene in Shadow Recruit, I started to come to the realization of something. Though there are some very good movies in the series and great moments throughout, I never considered any of the Jack Ryan films “great”. It’s because the style that defines the character, the heart that is true to Tom Clancy’s novels, just isn’t as exciting cinematically as I’d like it to be. Yes, Shadow Recruit is arguably the most exciting one for us action movie fans, but it’s just not Jack Ryan. As a result, I have realized that the franchise as a whole just isn’t as heralded as advertised.

Fun Fact: The Ben Affleck-led Jack Ryan sequels were abandoned after Gigli flopped. Director Sam Raimi was in talks to spearhead a revival of the Jack Ryan franchise at one point, but he dropped out to work on Spider-Man 4. Unfortunately, that movie never happened either. Also considered for the role of Cathy were Evangeline Lily and Felicity Jones. Jessica Biel and Kate Beckinsale were approached, but they both declined.