Review of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014) by Cdncurmudgeon — 27 Jan 2014

If you are looking for mindless entertainment for a winter’s afternoon (or evening) then Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit is your movie. If you are looking for an intelligent well acted spy thriller then not so much. Writers Adam Cozad and David Koepp have taken Tom Clancy’s reluctant CIA analyst who keeps being drawn into the action whether he wants to go or not and cast him as a CIA analyst working undercover on Wall Street who reluctantly gets drawn into the action in Moscow. This time Jack Ryan, who has been portrayed by almost as many actors as Batman or James Bond is woodenly played by Chris Pine. Pine’s main claim to fame is his ability to flawlessly recreate William Shatner’s James T Kirk in the unnecessary reboots of the Star Trek franchise. Along for this preposterous ride is Keira Knightley as Ryan’s not-quite-wife. Within 24 hours she is able to get time off work at a major New York hospital, get a visa to visit Russia and fly to Moscow to surprise our hero in his hotel room. When he finally admits to her that he is a CIA agent she is happily relieved because she thought he was having an affair. After totally accepting Jack’s double life she becomes an important partner in his spycraft, and to top it off is fully conversant in Russian literary fiction.

One of the movie posters has the tag line “Trust no one” but there is no double crossing or “things are not as they seem” anywhere in this movie. Kevin Costner manages to be stiffer than Pine in his portrayal of the senior operative who is Jack’s handler in Moscow. Director Kevin Branagh is suitably evil as the Russian financier bent on destroying the US economy with the full blessing of the Russian minister of something-or-other. Even our suicide bomber plays according to cliché. No plot twist anywhere.

The action sequences though make up for the weak storyline and weaker acting. No Oscar winner but an adequate time-waster when it’s 20° below zero.