Review of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014) by Ola G — 02 Apr 2015

After the terrorist attacks on 9/11, Jack Ryan (Chris Pine), studying at the London School of Economics, becomes a U.S. Marine second lieutenant fighting in Afghanistan, where his spine is critically injured when his helicopter is shot down. During a lengthy recovery, he attracts the attention of Cathy Muller (Keira Knightley), the medical student helping him learn to walk again, and Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner), an official with the CIA who recruits him. Ten years later, Ryan is working on Wall Street with a cover job as a compliance officer at a stock brokerage, and as a covert CIA analyst, looking for suspect financial transactions that would indicate terrorist activity. When the Russian Federation loses a key vote before the United Nations, Ryan notices that the markets do not respond in the expected way. He discovers that trillions of dollars held by Russian organizations have disappeared. A large number of these funds are controlled by Viktor Cherevin (Kenneth Branagh), a Russian tycoon. Ryan's employer conducts business with Cherevin, so when Ryan discovers certain accounts are inaccessible to him as auditor, he has a reason to visit Moscow and investigate...

We have seen Alec Baldwin, Ben Affleck, Harrison Ford and now Chris Pine as Jack Ryan. The latest Ryan movie "The Sum of All Fears" with Affleck was a raised eyebrow and nothing more and now 12 years later we get "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit". Peter Travers of Rolling Stone was not so enthusiastic about the film, saying it "has no personality of its own." Travers added, "It's a product constructed out of spare parts and assembled with computerized precision. It's hard to care when Jack turns operational and becomes a CIA robocop." And I reckon that´s the biggest problem with "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit". There´s no emotional structure or invest that convinces, it´s a cold and lifeless stereotypical spy game that drags out and the tension isn´t there at all if you ask me. You feel bored at times. Which is not a good sign. Branagh gets to play both bad guy and director and I think he should´ve focused on one part not two. The result is neither or nor. Pine and Costner are ok and I personally don´t like Knightley. Never has, never will. Unfortunately, "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit" is as well a raised eyebrow and nothing more.