JACK RYAN, SHADOW RECRUIT: RYAN REDUX

You can't be a fan of movies or the modern thriller novel without knowing who Tom Clancy is. While working as an insurance salesman he wrote novels in his spare time, eventually creating a genre all to himself, the technological thriller. The best known character among those created by Clancy was Jack Ryan, a hero for our time.

Ryan has been played by several great actors over the years starting with Alec Baldwin in THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER. Harrison Ford took over the role in both PATRIOT GAMES and A CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER. The last person to play Ryan was Ben Affleck in SUM OF ALL FEARS after which Ryan disappeared for a while. That's all changed with Chris Pine taking on the part in JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT.

Rather than carry on with an incredibly younger Ryan the producers decided to take us back to how Ryan came to be where he was at in the earlier films, a prequel. We open with Ryan attending college only to hear of the bombings of the twin towers which results in his joining the Marines. When his helicopter is shot down in Afghanistan Ryan is taken off the battlefield. The heroic rescue of his fellow Marines from that crash as well as a dissertation he was writing prior to leaving college catches the eye of Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner) who recruits Jack into the CIA.

Working as an analyst with little to know training as a field agent, Jack is placed undercover in a banking institute with the intent of finding hidden assets that terrorists might be using. In so doing he discovers a discrepancy in a joint investment with a Soviet group led by Viktor Cherevin (Kenneth Branagh). The only way to find out if this is a problem or not is for him to go to Russia and investigate there. Needless to say this is not the safest venture for an analyst.

At the same time Ryan is trying to carry on his romance with Cathy Muller (Keira Knightly), the nurse from his time in rehab and now a doctor. While he wants to marry her, she holds off. His mysterious ways have her wondering if he's hiding something from her but working for the CIA is not at the top of her list. With the promise of meeting her in Paris in a few days, Ryan sets out for Russia.

His arrival results in an attack by his escort that leaves the assassin dead in Ryan's hotel room. Calling for help, he meets up with Thomas in a park and goes from analyst to field op. The arrival of Cathy back at his hotel results in her discovering his secret. After a few twists and turns she then becomes involved in the operation against Cherevin. As the story unfolds the plot turns out to be a plan to collapse the American dollar and send the U.S. into a new depression surpassing any that have occurred before. Now it's up to Ryan to end the plot.

The updating of the character works well here, setting up a possible series of films for Pine in the lead that would be worth carrying on. The movie moves along at break neck speed and yet offers a fantastic combination of story and action that most films fail to achieve. They usually go for one or the other. Here, they meld well in an action hero that uses his brain as well as his fists.

The acting is above what we usually expect in a spy film. Costner does a great job as Jack's mentor. Branagh (who also directed) is a slimy villain with a certain amount of charm. Knightly does a great job as Ryan's love interest who finds herself in the midst of things and stands by her man. Pine shows his acting chops here offering a performance that shows he's not a one note character by the name of Captain Kirk. No where does a sense of that character blend into this one.

As I said the film offers plenty of action and a plot that you have to pay attention to in order to understand. It's a treat to see a movie that actually doesn't dumb down for an audience. With any luck this movie will not be the only time we see Pine as Ryan and many more movies will follow. With the amount of books Clancy wrote there is plenty of source material to work from, even if this film bypassed those. In the end this movie is not just one to watch but one you'll come back to now and again. That makes it one worth adding to the collection. Now I need to go back and update the rest to blu-ray as well.

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