Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (***)

Directed by: Kenneth Branagh

Starring: Chris Pine, Kevin Costner, Keira Knightley, Kenneth Branagh, Alec Utgoff, Nonso Anozie, Colm Feore, Gemma Chan, David Paymer, Karen David

Seen: January 17^th 2014

*** Out of ****

I really like a good spy movie, and we haven’t had all that many spy movies lately. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is the fifth movie in the Jack Ryan universe, with Alec Baldwin (The Hunt for Red October), Harrison Ford (Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger), and Ben Affleck (The Sum of All Fears) having portrayed Ryan on the big-screen before. This time around Ryan is played by Chris Pine in his second big “inherited” role after being James T. Kirk in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movies. Where the previous Jack Ryan movies were all based on novels by the late Tom Clancy, this movie only uses the characters; Shadow Recruit is an original Jack Ryan story.

Jack Ryan (Pine) decides to become a marine after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, as he wants part in the effort against any form of terrorism. He nearly dies in Afghanistan when his helicopter is shot down, and during the painstaking and lengthy rehabilitation he meets Dr. Cathy Muller (Knightley) and is approached by William Harper (Costner), who reluctantly acknowledges that he is with the CIA, and they want Ryan. Jump 10 years and Ryan is working on Wall Street, where he is a covert analyst for the CIA, following global financial trends to fight terrorism. Ryan stumbles upon irregularities in the markets when Russia and the United Nations have a run-in, and when he starts investigating, the information he uncovers leads him and the CIA to Moscow, where he will be facing off with Russian businessman and Afghanistan war veteran, Viktor Cherevin (Branagh). Suspecting he is having an affair, Ryan’s fiancée Muller also flies to Moscow to surprise him, but she finds the completely unexpected truth about Jack Ryan and his new handler, and she even joins in the covert operation to try and save the global economy from Cherevin’s nefarious plans.

Branagh is good at creating tension and immediacy in this movie, both as director and actor. Pine is in good from as the professional analyst receiving his initiation into the field, Costner is cool as the mysterious CIA man, and Knightley is far less annoying than I usually find her as a suspecting yet supportive wife. The action comes in crisp, short bursts as the tension builds through the intricate, yet relatively straight-forward plot, and when the movie ends you definitely breathe a sigh of relief as the tension ebbs away on the current of the credits. True to Tom Clancy form, the movie doesn’t feature outlandish or futuristic technology, but a very core set of capabilities on both sides that never once has the viewer doubting its authenticity. I enjoyed Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit immensely, and with the scarcity of cool spy movies nowadays it is a welcome bit of escapism that doesn’t disappoint at all.