Jack Ryan: Shadow
Recruit
Director:
Kenneth Branaugh
Year: 2014
Rating: 6.0
After watching the new TV series of Jack Ryan,
I was curious enough to go back and re-watch this from four years ago to
see how it fit into the series. Hmmm. It covers basically the same time period
but with a lot of variations. I don't know if either are based on one of
Clancy's novels or just based on his character. I have never read Clancy
but I took a look at the Wikipedia page on Jack Ryan. Holy cow. He wrote
a lot of Jack Ryan books and eventually he becomes President! Who would have
thought. I also - stupidly - had never realized that a bunch of films I had
seen a while back all had the Jack Ryan character in common. I never made
the connection. The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present
Danger, The Sum of All Fears and this one. Only Harrison Ford played the
role twice. Which partly explains my confusion. That and a bad memory. I
only know this was Jack Ryan because the name is in the title. Duh. And his
boss from the new series is a character in three of the movies played by
James Earl Jones.
The film feels very standard espionage fare but moves quickly and has an
excellent cast of Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Kenneth Branagh and the always
perfect Keira Knightley. They try and do a Mission Impossible here and Ryan
is way toooooo smart for human understanding and a bit too tough for a guy
who has been an analyst for the past ten years. But it's the movies and it
was enjoyable enough.