Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

I would not want to work as a CIA agent. Why ? Just think how much responsability they have and so much pressure they have to handle ? No, i prefer having a normal job, where i dont have to wake up knowing i could be killed while having morning coffee. Author Tom Clancy passed away last year, a man who wrote so many novels about spies, police cases and of course terrorists in different parts of the world. Jack Ryan, CIA agent, is one of Tom Clancys most famous characters, who first showed up in a motion picture in The Hunt Of Red October. Alec Baldwin was the first actor to portrait this character inside a submarine. 2 years later Harrison Ford took over as Jack Ryan in Patriot Games. People loved Harrison Fords version of Jack Ryan, and it was a box office hit. He returned as Jack Ryan in the sequel Clear And Present Danger. It took over 7 years before the character Jack Ryan returned to the big screen, as Ben Affleck took over the role in the next chapter The Sum Of All Fears. And here we are, with a prequel to tell the story how Jack Ryan started his life in Shadow Recruit. With a completely new cast, and a younger Jack played by Chris Pine, is this prequel a worthy start of this classic character, or no where near as good as the previous movies ?

Jack Ryan ( Chris Pine ) is a student at the London School Of Economics. When he is finished with his studies, he becomes a Marine Second Lieutenant in Afghanistan. His promising start for a career, suddenly changes when a chopper he is travelling in is shot down. Jack is badly injured, he survives but he will need a lot of rehabilitation to come back to ordinary life. At the rehab center for injured soldiers, Jack meets Dr. Cathy Muller ( Kiera Knightley ), who work here. Jack and Cathy become more than friends, and finally end up becoming a married couple. Thomas Harper ( Kevin Costner ), an official with the CIA, notice how talented Jack is. CIA decide to recruite Jack. 10 years later, we find Jack working on Wall Street on a cover job as a stock brokerage. One day, while Jack go though numbers, he finds out something is not right. He discover that trillions of dollars held by Russian organizations, just dissapear. Jack inform CIA what he have found, as Thomas organize an operation in Moscow. The man behind this is said to be Viktor Cherevin ( Kenneth Branagh ), a war veteran from the Soviet war in Afghanistan. He is the one in control of the funds, and he seems to be planning something bigger than before. Jack needs to find out what Viktor is going to do, before time is running out.

I would have liked this motion picture even more, if Kenneth Branagh would have changed some scenes. You see, there are moments i am so bored, and this is supposed to be a spy thiller. The cast is great, and even Kevin Costner does ok, but the slow scenes in the first hour makes the impact feel blurry. Chris Pine does a good performance, even if i am not a big fan of his pervious work. In the last 30 minutes we finally get some more action that should have been delivered earlier. But the journey towards the end feels endless, and you wonder if director Kenneth Branagh thought that this might be what the audience wanted in a Jack Ryan prequel. This is not a bad motion picture, there are moments where we get some nice surprises. But this does not happen very often, so i have to give this low rating based on the extremely slow scenes. I respect Kenneth both as an actor and a director, he is very talented in both ways. But this is just not good enough to enjoy all the way.

Rating: DD