Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit - A Paranoia-Fueled Thriller
A paranoid thriller portraying Russia as a nation of Orthodox terrorists and financially inept masterminds.
The film follows Jack Ryan, played by Chris Pine, an American graduate student whose life takes a dramatic turn after the 9/11 attacks. Abandoning his studies at the London School of Economics, he enlists in the Marines. During his service in Afghanistan, his helicopter is shot down, leaving him severely wounded. While recovering in the hospital, he meets Cathy Muller (Keira Knightley), a medical intern. Ryan’s military career ends there, but he is recruited by CIA agent William Harper (Kevin Costner). Harper tasks Ryan with finishing his education, securing a job on Wall Street, and monitoring suspicious financial transactions. Years later, Jack uncovers a pattern in the financial dealings of Russian oligarch Viktor Cherevin (Kenneth Branagh), suggesting an imminent large-scale financial terrorist attack against the United States. Unable to investigate the situation in New York, Harper sends Ryan to Moscow, despite his lack of field experience.
Unlike the Jack Ryan in the film, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan wasn’t involved in war before joining the CIA. He nearly died in a plane crash during military exercises.
The director, writers, producers, and lead actors of “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” should be placed on a “Guantanamo list” and permanently banned from entering Russia, at least until they publicly apologize for “Shadow Recruit.” While we understand that few countries can challenge America, and Hollywood screenwriters have limited options when crafting spy thrillers, the creators of “Ryan” went too far. The film depicts a massive explosion in New York City and a subsequent attack on the American financial system orchestrated not by generic terrorists or rogue extremists, but by the current Russian government – the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, the intelligence services, the entire “vertical power structure.” Could there be a greater insult to our nation?
Except for scenes featuring Moscow landmarks, the Russian scenes were filmed in Liverpool and London.
The problem isn’t just that Russia, which has contributed significantly to America since 9/11 and sincerely tried to prevent the recent Boston bombing, is portrayed as a nation of anti-American revanchists and terrorists without a single positive character, even a minor one. The real offense is the blatant absurdity of the plot. It’s obvious that Russia, heavily reliant on exports, needs wealthy clients with thriving economies to consume its oil and gas. A Western “second Great Depression,” as the film puts it, would devastate our budget. Yet, the villains in the film fail to grasp this, making them seem less intelligent than children. They are not portrayed as people, but as subhumans.
Moreover, they are specifically identified as Orthodox Christians. The film emphasizes this point. The main villain visits a church to pray before the operation, and his American accomplices meet in a church to say, “Let’s go!” The film presents not just Russian terrorists, but Russian Orthodox terrorists, who are also portrayed as idiots and alcoholics (the villain dies of cirrhosis). They can’t even write in Russian, as two-thirds of the Russian inscriptions in the film are nonsensical gibberish. Everywhere you look, there is an insult to Russia, disrespect, and a misunderstanding of even the most obvious things, such as the fact that a patriotic oligarch would never hang a painting dedicated to Waterloo in his office. Why would we care about Waterloo when we have the Berezina River in Napoleon’s history?
Incompetence on Both Sides
However, the film’s incompetence isn’t limited to the Russian characters. Ryan claims that a car bomb could “pacify” hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, despite the bomb not being nuclear. Clearly, he’s a master of numbers. His “insights,” supposedly demonstrating his brilliant intellect, often seem completely arbitrary – a kind of scientific guessing game in the service of his country. And what about his boss, who sends an inexperienced analyst on a mission that determines the fate of the United States? Does the CIA not have any experienced “brainy” agents? A boss who hasn’t built a reliable team after years in the agency should be fired.
Final Verdict
Does “Shadow Recruit” have any redeeming qualities? Yes, it does. The film picks up momentum in the second half (though not enough to make the blunders less noticeable), and Chris Pine and Keira Knightley have great chemistry, both together and separately. However, the investors would have been better off funding a rom-com or melodrama with these stars instead of subjecting us to a film that spends two hours bashing Russia and fails to deliver impressive stunts, fights, or even a moderately coherent plot.