Runtime: 1 hours, 45 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Quick Impressions:
Traditionally, January is a dumping ground for bad movies, and the bigger they should have been, the worse they actually are.
My husband and I went to Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit hoping that it might be different, however, because I know that it was supposed to open Christmas Day. Supposedly it was pushed not due to its own failings, but because The Wolf of Wall Street wasn’t ready in November and needed a 2013 release date to be eligible for Oscars.
Still I went in with low expectations. Now maybe you’re asking yourself, With Chris Pine cast as the always watchable Tom Clancy hero, and Kenneth Branagh directing, how much could possibly go wrong?
That’s a good point, but my mom watched Die Hard 5 for the first time on TV the other day, and I’m afraid that was enough of a reminder that any franchise (no matter how solid) can be completely ruined with the greatest of ease. Action movies that open in January or February should always be approached with extreme caution. As you walk into the theater, ask yourself, Why isn’t this coming out in the summer instead? There’s a reason. There’s always a reason.
Fortunately, to my surprise, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit was thoroughly entertaining, highly watchable. I expected it to be decent, but I think it was a bit better than that. I’d watch it again without hesitation (which is more than I can say for Die Hard 5).
Is it the greatest action movie ever? No. Is it anywhere near as good as The Hunt for Red October? No. Would it have been a bigger hit if it had been released at Christmas? Probably. Families could see this together. It’s a little bland, I suppose, but that makes it something that almost everyone can enjoy.
If you’re looking for a decent action movie and want to see one before spring break, Shadow Recruit is definitely the film for you. Pounce on it now!
The Good:
If I were making a movie about shady Russian skullduggery in the post-Cold War era, I would definitely involve the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, but I guess nobody’s doing that, so there’s no point in fixating on the idea now. I’ll just move on.
The decision to make the villain in this story Russian is interesting and unexpected. Ultimately, I think it works to the movie’s advantage. For one thing, the villain is motivated by revenge and can’t let go of the past. So it makes sense that he’s Russian. It’s quite easy to believe that in the aftermath of the Cold War, a disgruntled Russian might want to take revenge on the United States (and particularly the CIA).
Also, I know Russian villains in contemporary movies often draw complaints—because the Cold War is over—but I think focusing on a Russian villain is kind of refreshing. Just because something is “over” doesn’t mean it really is over, after all. If you’re running a race against someone, and you win, your competitor doesn’t cease to exist the second you cross the finish line. No, she’s still standing there, seething, wishing she’d beaten you.
So I mean, even though our focus is elsewhere, it makes sense that there would be Russians hung up on destroying America, and that somebody working for our government would have to be focused on stopping them. I mean, surely not everybody is working on the same thing. (If Zero Dark Thirty is to be believed, then we just put one girl on Osama bin Laden.) Somebody’s got to be paying attention to Russia.
I also thought the plot itself—I mean Cherevin’s plot, the financial scheme—was clever and relatively novel. It’s not like there’s never been a movie about an international financial conspiracy, but that’s less often a plot element than some other things.
The principal cast of the movie—Chris Pine, Keira Knightley, Kevin Costner, and Kenneth Branagh—all make the most of their screen time and play reasonably likable characters. Of the four, I think Knightley is the weakest, but she has some of the best dialogue, so it all balances out. Don’t get me wrong, Knightley is a lovely woman and a good actress, but she always looks like she’s leaning forward trying to inhale her scene partner like she needs their aura for sustenance. I’m not sure why (or how) she does that (or if she could stop), but that particular tendency of hers is even more pronounced than usual in this film.
Pine is particularly good as Jack Ryan. Honestly to me, he seems a better fit for the part than anybody since Alec Baldwin. This is a very good part for Kevin Costner, too. (I’ve liked him much better since he started playing fatherly/role model characters rather than the supposedly irresistible heart throb.) The best acting in the film probably comes from Kenneth Branagh. He makes the villain conspicuously more nuanced than anyone else. I’m not sure that’s a good thing for the overall quality of the film, but it does make Cherevin’s scenes compelling to watch.
The film’s pacing is pretty good, and I think its action scenes are superior to those in Thor (also directed by Branagh). They’re not as claustrophobic and up in everyone’s face. It’s much easier to see what is happening. Nothing in the fight choreography and chase scenes is particularly unique, but it’s still very easy and enjoyable to watch.
I also think Shadow Recruit looks good—kind of pretty. And I really liked Patrick Doyle’s score.
Best Scene:
The strongest part of the film by a long shot in every way is the sequence that begins when Jack and Cathy head out for dinner with Cherevin. So much happens during dinner—basically the entire film up to that point comes to a head during this scene. The movie is firing on all cylinders at this point. Of course Jack’s antics (while far from novel for a spy movie) are very interesting to watch, but what really got my attention was the curiously intriguing dinner conversation between Cherevin and Cathy. I don’t know why, but I really wanted to be at that table, suddenly. I longed to jump into the conversation and respond to them.
Maybe this part works so well because Branagh enjoys the metadramatic, play-within-a-play aspect going on here, or maybe he and Keira Knightley play off each other well and have good chemistry. I’m not sure what it is, but all four principal actors are at their best during this part of the movie, and the script seems sharper than average, too.
Best Action Sequence:
The car chase that happens just after the dinner is the most intense, suspenseful part of the film. In fact, it’s really the only part of the movie that contains true menace. There’s a genuine threat, and while we strongly suspect that nothing bad is actually going to happen, we are not completely sure.
The early scene in the helicopter is quite good, too, because it catches us off guard.
Best Scene Visually:
Another part of the movie I particularly like is Ryan’s first kill. I liked watching how he does it, his behavior afterwards, and how much things have changed when he returns to his room. The visual contrast between the two states of the room is pronounced.
The forest where Cherevin has his “meetings” is also quite something to look at. And it’s always interesting to have a battle in a room full of water.
The Negatives:
For me the biggest problem of the movie is that the most intricate and suspenseful action sequence is not the film’s finale. The sequence that begins when Jack and Cathy head to the restaurant to meet Cherevin for dinner is without a doubt the best part of the entire movie. A character (who actually matters to us and to Jack) is in peril. In fact, until all this is resolved, Jack himself is in peril. Every second counts. Jack’s entire life is at stake.
It’s riveting. We’re all on the edges of our seats waiting to see how it will end. And then the sequence does end…the sequence, but not the movie. Unfortunately nothing the film now has in store for us even comes close to living up to the excitement of the dinner party/break in/escape/chase around Moscow part of the movie.
Once Jack, Cathy, and the rest of his friends are out of harm’s way, the stakes just don’t feel as high. Now granted, objectively, the stakes are insanely high when dealing with a terror plot that could take out hundreds of millions of people. The problem is, we don’t really know any of those people. The urgency that we feel when we see someone we know in grave danger just isn’t there for anonymous strangers.
Besides, this film is set in the past. History alone is a massive spoiler for the audience. All of us watching know already that the act of terror predicted in the movie did not occur.
So ultimately, the film is just incredibly anti-climactic.
Another (related) problem is that director Kenneth Branagh (whether through accident or design) gives himself the part of the most interesting character (or makes the character he plays the most interesting, depending on how you look at it). The trouble is, he’s never quite as interesting as Branagh seems to think. I mean, Cherevin’s a cool guy. He’s got a lot of mystery and gravitas, and he’s also quite pitiable. But ultimately, he’s just another bad guy who loses. Even if in his mind, he’s acting the role of tragic hero, his enemies see the story very differently, less indulgently. The CIA is not concerned with Cherevin’s inner turmoil, his illness, his legacy, his doom. They just want to stop him from attacking the United States.
In a way, it’s too bad that it was Jack Ryan who introduced us to Cherevin. In a different genre, a different movie, he might have entertained us (and influenced us) far more. He seems like a character who is too complex for his movie.
My husband pointed out after the movie that it (refreshingly) avoids the usual drama of spy films and presents the CIA agents as good guys who are trying to do what is right, working to help our country thrive. (He also said that the film successfully spins a pretty strong case for letting the NSA have access to everyone’s social media.)
I agree that Shadow Recruit offers a refreshingly simplistic take on the world of espionage (kind of a throwback to a more innocent era of popcorn cinema). But I do find it weird that while the “good guys” really do seem simply good, the “bad guys” are not simple at all and not necessarily bad.
Chris Pine makes Ryan an immediately likable character, but even though we like him, we can see that he’s not exactly the world’s most complicated guy. It’s okay at first because all the other characters are (pleasantly) one dimensional, too. But then the antagonist enters the picture, seeming much more like a real human being with a multi-faceted personality and tons of messy complexity.
I mean, they could have called the movie Jack Ryan: Shadow Puppet and nailed the level of Ryan’s complexity. Nobody has too much substance in the set-up of this film. They’re all a bunch of shadow puppets. But when Cherevin shows up, he has actual substance. It’s interesting (for viewers) but problematic (for the overall quality of the movie).
Our hero runs all over the place chasing bad guys because he knows how to use his legs, and, meanwhile, our villain weepily regards a gigantic painting of the Battle of Waterloo because he’s tormented by the metaphor he sees there. Ryan and Cherevin, frankly, don’t even seem like they’re in the same movie, most of the time.
Overall:
I liked Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit much more than I expected. If you want to see it, don’t be deterred by its January release date. It’s just as good as most movies of its kind released in summer. (Do keep in mind, though, that most of those movies aren’t necessarily “good,” so much as they are fun to watch with famous casts, reasonably coherent stories, big (enough) budgets, and high production values.) You’re probably not going to find a better mainstream, big budget popcorn flick than this in January or February, so you might as well give it a try. It’s not perfect, but it’s perfectly fine, and at the end of January, that’s more than good enough.