I was like: Oh sweet fuck, they’re rebooting Tom Clancy for the 85th time.
Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, and now Chris Pine.
I was fully prepared to skip this one as it wasn’t even made from a Clancy novel. They were using the character Jack Ryan in a story they made up. Yawn. Then I saw that Kenneth Branagh was directing it. That changed EVERYTHING.
He was in the movie as well, but that doesn’t mean shit. He has acted in Wild Wild West and Harry Potter 2. He’ll ACT in a piece of shit. But he doesn’t DIRECT pieces of shit. Thor could easily have been an effeminate clusterfuck. He directed the shit out of that. I think Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most cumbersome plays. With easily his worst female lead. However I LOVE Branagh’s film version. All 4 hours of it.
He has given us a pared down basic spy thriller. Nothing mind blowing, but a very tight thriller.
It’s actually kind of the plot of Debt of Honor, or at least the financial attack part. Japan is traded out for Russia, and Branagh himself plays the villain.
Chris Pine plays Jack Ryan who is at a point in his life we’ve really only heard referenced in books. Although moved up in time. We see him as a marine, how he injured his back, how he met Cathy, and how he was recruited by the CIA. He is supposed to be an analyst. Well kind of, he’s a CIA plant in a Wall St trading house on the lookout for terrorism financing. I’m pretty sure the CIA isn’t allowed to have domestic operations but whatever.
So when Branagh’s evil Russian oligarch initiates his financial war, Jack is well placed to help. So spymaster Kevin Cotsner makes him go to Russia to investigate.
Fairly simple plot, very well executed. It’s no Tinker, Tailor but it’ll do.