Reviewed: Jack Ryan, Shadow Recruit

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is an entire back-to-basics reworking of a franchise that has been rebooted more often than the Cold War had hot dinners. Alec Baldwin first appeared as Ryan in The Hunt for Red October, with Harrison Ford taking over the role in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger and future Batman Ben Affleck stepping in for The Sum of All Fears. But the 2014 film gives us a younger Ryan - transposed from Clancy's cold war era  to a post-9/11 student who decides he wants to put his brilliant analytical mind to use in the service of his country. We follow Ryan from his studies in London, to his war - and significant injuries - in Afghanistan and back Stateside where his determined attitude to recovery and his  bravery and insight is recognised and co-opted by shadowy CIA spook Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner).

Ryan is placed in the heart of Wall Street, his job being to spot patterns in financial irregularities and antiicpate their potential links to terrorism. It's a difficult, but glorified desk-job that plays to Ryan's strengths and allows him to set up home with Kiera Knightley's doctor Cathy Muller (who nursed him back to health) and yet stay out of the dangerous frontline war that forever exists just out of sight. He can't tell Cathy his real job, but the only real danger is that she may be mistaking his clandestine meetings with Costner for him cheating on her.

When Ryan realises that a raft of Russian accounts may be hiding more than illicit cash and are a prelude to a terrorist attack designed to destabilise the dollar, a visit to Russia is needed to verify the details. Unfortunately there's no-one as good as Ryan to check it out and so he's convinced to head to Moscow in an effort to find out more. We are soon in a situation where Viktor Cherevin (Branagh) knows that Ryan rightly suspects him of being the financial kingpin and Ryan knows that Vicktor knows that - and thus begins a diplomatic game of cat and mouse and double-speak as the two brilliant men circle each other in an effort to determine the other's weaknesses. When Cathy comes to Moscow to surprise her fiancee, the powerplay shifts with Jack, Cathy and possibly the fate of America's banking system at stake...

Behind one of the worst Photoshopped cut and paste posters for a major film that we've seen in several years, the actual Jack Ryan film is perfectly decent outing that provides a couple of hours of diverting derring-do and entertaining espionage without ever pushing too heavily against the boundaries of the medium.  The first act positively whistles by, taking in a decade in which Pine's Ryan's formative years are given something of a patriotic checklist of events designed to make the twenty-something the man he will be. They are all an effort to lay the groundwork for the main thrust of the plot, giving Ryan and the audience a doorway into another chapter of his life that will be even more dangerous.

Pine is a talent to watch. He's a rising star with the traditional Hollywood qualities - square-jawed, blue-eyed and self-deprecating - and  already has the Star Trek franchise at his feet and several successful films to his name. If his work so far has been successful rather than out-standing, he's still potentially on the cusp of a career that just needs a truly breakout movie to solidify his credentials. Ryan won't necessarily set any critic's pen on fire, but it's the kind of basic crowd-pleaser film more than capable of kick-starting a mainstream franchise - and that looks good on anyone's resume. 

Ultimately, this is sandwiched somewhere between Bond and Bourne - neither as overtly over-the-top as the former nor quite as earnest and raw as the latter. It's a film that speeds by at a rate that doesn't allow you to question its internal logic too much and gives you all the signposts as to whom you should cheer or boo. It's not a large criticism to say that though it is a modern actionfest, it feels like it has the heart of an 1990s release in which the parameters and characters are cut from familiar cloth. Everyone is clearly having fun making the film and the result will satiate the average action fan, if not quite give them anything they haven't seen before.

The set-pieces are inventive. A hand-to-hand combat scene in a Moscow hotel is well choreographed and interestingly executed by Branagh is his directorial role.  Pine handles the physicality well throughout, keeping up with the needs of the script even if the story tends to forget his previous injuries rather too quickly. The actor rightly gives credit to stunt choreographer Vic Armstrong for bringing his years of experience to help make the more kinetic scenes look so smooth. 

Full points to the creative team for making the likes of Manchester, Liverpool and Manchester look like downtown Moscow. Though the production did shoot ofr a limited time in Russia, grabbing a few key shots over a handful of days - it's pretty hard to tell what sequences were shot in which location and it's a tribute to the FX department that some of the backdrops were dropped in so seamlessly. With the exception of a few 'power-shots' Branagh frames all his sequences to their best effect.

On the acting front, Branagh has taken some stick for his role as the bad guy here, complete with sneers and clipped accent - though accusations he's gone the Alan Rickkman / Robin Hood route are perhaps a little unfair. He actually does quiet menace rather well, even if there are some broad strokes throughout. Keira Knightley does adequately in her role as Cathy, giving the character some emotional backbone (which belies her diminutive frame) when necessary and the script tries to oblige, though it never quite comes across as convincing as one would hope. 

As a reboot, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit makes its protaganist more code worrier than cold warrior, but he survives his first new adventure well enough  and should the box-office decide to reflect that then there's more than enough room to build further stories/storeys on this foundation and put some muscle on the bone. Thus far, Chris Pine and Co. seem well-equipped to take on a job that is 'mission practical' rather than 'impossible'... and the late Tom Clancy would probably approve.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (12A) is released by Paramount on 24th January...