Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

Much in the same vein as other films based on Clancy novels, "The Hunt for Red October" '90, "Patriot Games" '92, and "The Sum of All Fears" '02, we have yet another film with a similar feel in the form of "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit". This, as with the others, allows us to escape into another place and situation through the different characters Clancy so well delineates.

To his friends and loved ones, young Jack Ryan (Chris Pine) appears to be an ordinary executive; however, he has secretly worked for the CIA for years. Ryan was originally brought in by his handler Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner) to crunch global data, but when he uncovers a carefully planned scheme to crash the U.S. economy and spark global chaos which is headed up by Russian leader Viktor Cherevin (Kenneth Branagh), he becomes the only man with the skills to stop it. Now a full operative, Ryan finds himself caught between Harper, his clueless fiancé, Cathy Muller (Keira Knightley) and Cherevin.

Others to round out the cast are Lenn Kudrjawizki as Constantin, Alec Utgoff as Aleksandr Borovsky, a terrorist, Peter Andersson as Dimitri Lemkov, Elena Velikanova as Katya, Nonso Anozie as Embee Deng, Seth Ayott as Teddy Hefferman, a co-worker of Ryan's, Colm Feore as Rob Behringer, and Gemma Chan as Amy Chang.

This was directed with his usual amount of clarity by veteran Kenneth Branagh ("Henry V" '89, "Dead Again" '91, "Peter's Friends" '92, "Much Ado About Nothing" '93, "Frankenstein" '94, "A Midwinter's Tale" '95, "Hamlet" '96, "Love's Labour's Lost" 2000, "As You Like It" '06, "The Magic Flute" '06, "Sleuth" '07, "Thor" '11). As with his past films, Branagh knows where to put his actors and how much intensity they really need to exude in order to convince the audience that who they are playing is that character. This was finely written by Adam Cozad and David Koepp which was based on characters created by Tom Clancy. The fact that Clancy's work is similar is a good thing and a bad thing in that one can expect that the plot is intriguing and intense so as to let the audience escape, however with them being similar, each piece of work has a tendency to be a bit predictable by film's end. As the old adage goes: "Familiarity breeds contempt". I simply can't end this review without mentioning the brilliant work of its stunt coordinator, Vic Armstrong ("Legend" '85, "Total Recall" '90, "Universal Soldier" '92, "Die Another Day" '02, "Mission Impossible III" '06, "Thor" '11) and tons of others. This guy's been around the block a few times and this film proved this in spades.

Whether you're a Clancy fan or not, you'll really be kept on the edge of your seat practically from beginning to end, and since Clancy just passed away last year, I suspect we won't see too much more of his work unless they attempt to cleverly copy him.

Out of 4 Stars: 3.5                        Rated: PG-13                          105mins.