Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (PG15) – starring Chris Pine, Kevin Costner and Keira Knightley, directed by and also starring Kenneth Branagh
Tom Clancy’s Cold War hero, CIA analyst Jack Ryan is back. After tackling terror plots (Patriot Games, The Sum of All Fears), rogue Russian sub captains (The Hunt for Red October) and Colombian drug cartels (Clear and Present Danger), this movie takes us back to the beginning, showing how the desk-bound analyst found himself thrown out into the ‘field’ for the first time.
Filling in the blanks previously alluded to in ‘Red October’, Ryan is shown as a raw recruit on his tour of Afghanistan, injured and bed-ridden after a helicopter accident, where he meets his future wife (Knightley).
Skipping us forward in time, we then catch up with Ryan as he’s recruited by the CIA, where he’s taken under the wing of experienced agent William Harper (Costner). It’s here where the real action starts, as Ryan is pitted against sinister Russian oligarch Viktor Cherevin (Branagh), who has been buying up US Treasury bonds through dummy corporations. Cherevin orders a terrorist attack on US soil, planning to sell the bonds after the strike, thereby crippling the dollar and the American economy, so Ryan races against time to thwart the plan.
Taking on the mantle previously played by Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and Alec Baldwin, Pine does panicked rough and tumble better than most, with Branagh, with his director’s hat on, framing the action and big set pieces with aplomb.
This is the first Ryan movie produced that is not based on a Clancy novel, but with Pine on fine form, and the action not too overblown, maybe the franchise has just received a new lease of life.
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit hits cinemas this Thursday 16th January.
Also Opening
The Book Thief (18+)
Geoffrey Rush and Sophie Nélisse star in this adaptation of the best-selling novel, with young girl Liesel enduring the horrors of World War II Germany by stealing books and sharing them with others, while befriending the refugee hiding under her stairs.
Philomena (PG13)
Best known for comedy roles, Steve Coogan here plays a depressed journalist who finds himself first working on, then getting caught up in the story of an Irishwoman (Judi Dench) who is searching for her son.
Black Rock (TBA)
Three friends from childhood get back together for a girls’ weekend on a remote island off the coast of Maine. After meeting three guys on a hunting trip of their own, one catastrophic encounter turns their weekend getaway into a terrifying fight for survival. Starring Kate Bosworth.
