Disc Reviews

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit Review

jackryanThis is the fifth take on the Jack Ryan Character – but the first film not based primarily on any of the existing novels. So it’s reboot time again (Don’t ask us why Affleck didn’t have a second stab at the character, but his film The Sum Of All fears over a decade ago was just fine and made a lot of money – sadly the character just dropped off the map again).

So Jack Ryan has to reinsert himself into a world hugely influenced by the likes of Jason Bourne (Which also launched the same year Affleck had a crack at Ryan and has spurred three sequels since).

So what is Ryan’s issue?  Well he is an analyst. Well he’s supposed to be an analyst, not a field agent, but obviously producers have conspired to get him out there anyway so that he can land a punch, chase a car, hack networks and defuse bombs like the best of them.

The issue is that he comes off as just that. A character desperate to fit into a work profile he doesn’t belong in.  Where Jack Ryan; Shadow Recruit should be reinventing the political thriller, here instead he is wasted in a plot not terribly worthy of his time or intellect.

Kenneth Brannah does a decent enough job behind and in front of the camera to give the film an old school cold war thriller type of feel about it.  But ultimately the third act conspires against the work he has done thus far by resorting to the usual race against the clock bomb/bad guy disposal routine.

Chris Pine is decent enough in the lead role of Ryan, although we suspect he is contracted to the studio and was looking for a second franchise to latch onto alongside the Star Trek money making machine.

Keira Knightkey distracts with an awkward accent in a role that makes you wonder why on earth an actress of her stature showed up. But when the film spends so much time with their relationship in the first half you soon start to see that the script is servicing the actors as opposed to the plot. But at least they do manage to salvage some of Ryan’s back story and get it right – like his early days in the military, a helicopter accident and the immediate aftermath of that. Placing Ryan in a modern day isn’t the issue here, it’s what they have him do in that society that is the issue.

If paramount have a second go with Pine (which remains to be seen after a lacklustre box office) then perhaps they will be braver with their character and make him more office based.

For now, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is mildly diverting at best.

3 Stars

 

 

 

Steven Hurst

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