Jack Ryan, the sunny-natured boy scout of the CIA, has had so much screen time that he’s been played by five actors. Now, finally, his Tom Clancy counterpart John Clark — the real shadow recruit — gets his own starring vehicle, after lurking on the fringes of Ryan’s movies and TV show for the past 30 years. There’s a reason why it’s taken the character so long to step up: as the title of this film implies, he’s a moody SOB. Dark, brutal, hard-edged. Not averse to a spot of henchman-immolation if the situation calls for it. In Clancy’s original novel, he even tortures a pimp to death using a diving-simulation chamber.
2021’s Without Remorse doesn’t get that bleak, but to its credit resists the urge to turn Clark into a wisecracking, softer hero. Michael B. Jordan, proving beyond doubt that he can do the whole action-movie thing, turns in a performance fuelled by rage and grief, following a grim home-invasion sequence that leaves his life up-ended. You entirely buy him as a guy who can, in a flash, weaponise his clothes using a sink, should it be necessary. (Jordan is also very good at doing that cool thing involving holding a flashlight and a gun while crossing your arms.) The story he’s propelled through may be a pretty standard revenge yarn, playing the same keys as movies as old as Schwarzenegger’s Commando and Seagal’s Hard To Kill, but Jordan is a natural at this stuff — it would be a shame if he doesn’t get to reprise the character.
Jordan is a natural at this stuff — it would be a shame if he doesn’t get to reprise the character.
The film’s next most valuable player is director Stefano Sollima, who adrenalised the otherwise rote Sicario sequel Soldado, and is the force behind current Italian thriller series ZeroZeroZero. He has a knack for crafting action set-pieces that keep squeezing the characters trapped in them like a vice, chucking in inspired little twists, and there are two standouts here: the scene at Clark’s home, and one set inside a commercial jet that’s sinking into a pitch-black ocean somewhere off the coast of Russia. The latter, in particular, is virtuoso — ridiculously suspenseful, seemingly heavy on practical FX, inspired in its use of air pockets. On the big screen, it would have been a showstopper; even on the small one, it’s barnstormingly entertaining.
Where Without Remorse, which transforms its source material entirely (goodbye, Baltimore sex workers and Vietnam heroin ring), falters is the plot. Long before the end, you’ll likely have guessed where it’s all going — machinations involving Jamie Bell’s Gorman-from-Aliens-esque greasy-weasel agency spook and higher-ups at the CIA go exactly where you expect them to. And with Jodie Turner-Smith’s Karen Greer, the most key supporting character, just as glum and taciturn as Clark, a funereal air lingers between action scenes that after a while makes the story start to sag. While Jordan nails the spirit of Clancy’s character, the film really could have done with a bit more fun around the edges and a little less remorse. Plus, maybe, one or two fewer chess analogies.
