Plot: Jack Ryan is reluctantly thrust back into the world of espionage when an international covert mission unravels a deadly conspiracy, forcing him to confront a rogue black-ops unit, and the clock is ticking.
Review: The four seasons of the Jack Ryan TV show on Amazon Prime brought a new edge to the character that we had not seen on the big screen since Patriot Games. With Ben Affleck and Chris Pine both attempting to portray the character brought to life by Harrison Ford and, before that, by Alec Baldwin, there were very large shoes to fill. John Krasinski stepped in to portray a Jack Ryan closer to the source material while exploring original stories inspired by Tom Clancy’s novels. Now, the Jack Ryan franchise is evolving from a long-form television series into a big-screen-capable franchise. Boasting Krasinski’s star power as well as his skill as a screenwriter, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War is the best cinematic take on the character since Harrison Ford’s debut in the role back in 1992. Bringing back Wendell Pierce and Michael Kelly, along with director Andrew Bernstein, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War is a globetrotting action flick that streamlines the geopolitical narrative into a fast-paced thrill ride poised to set up an ongoing movie franchise.
Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War picks up after the events of the final season of the television series, which saw Ryan (John Krasinski) retire from CIA analyst duties and move into the private sector. When an operation calls CIA Deputy Director James Greer (Wendell Pierce) back into action to face an old nemesis, he enlists the help of Jack Ryan, the only man he believes can help him on the mission. Contractor Mike November (Michael Kelly) joins the mission and is more than happy to be partnered with Jack once again after their previous adventures. As the pair set off for Dubai, where they are to meet Greer’s contact, Nigel Cooke (Douglas Hodge), who has something to hand off, things take a turn, leading both November and Ryan to partner with MI6 Agent Emma Marlow (Sienna Miller). Very quickly, Jack Ryan learns more about his friend and mentor than he bargained for.
With the action taking Ryan, Marlow, and November from Dubai to London and beyond, the stakes illuminate elements of Greer’s past that have been hinted at since the start of the television series. Audiences can enjoy Jack Ryan: Ghost War without having watched any of the four seasons of the Prime Video series, but the film builds on subplots and characters introduced in the show, which heighten its stakes. The narrative goes back and explains how Greer is connected to Liam Crown (Max Beesley), the man trying to take him down. It is a fast-moving plot that scales down the global stakes of the movies a bit, with no nuclear-powered submarines or the risk of global destruction. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War is closer to the personal stakes of Patriot Games, which saw Jack Ryan facing off against Irish terrorists with a vendetta. That does not mean this movie keeps things small; it features an intense car chase through the streets of London, a boat chase through the waters of Dubai, and a major operation in a Dubai skyscraper, giving it ambitious, stunt-heavy sequences.
While the Prime Video series consisted of seasons lasting between six and eight hours, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War clocks in at a brisk 105 minutes. The feature-length runtime means the film lacks the bandwidth to develop characters or complex plots over multiple episodes and requires a more focused narrative. This means we do not see Jack’s love interest, Dr. Cathy Mueller (Abby Cornish), although she is name-checked. Sienna Miller’s inclusion in the cast provides the primary female presence, with Betty Gabriel appearing briefly as CIA director Elizabeth Wright. Miller plays Marlow as a hard-nosed, street-smart agent who is more street-smart than Jack Ryan but shares a similar loneliness that he can relate to. There is solid chemistry between them, though it remains professional. Wendell Pierce is key to the plot but doesn’t get much to do compared to his role in the series, while Michael Kelly is a lot of fun, with Mike November feeling lighter and more humorous than ever before.
John Krasinski co-wrote the screenplay for Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War with Aaron Rabin. The co-writers did not base the film on any particular Tom Clancy novel, which gave them the freedom to explore a contemporary story that draws on the characters’ traits from the book series without being beholden to the source material. The fast-paced narrative shifts from one global locale to another and does not slow down for more than a minute at a time to develop the characters. The first half of the film is very exposition-heavy, but it picks up the pace just before the halfway mark. John Krasinski lets his sense of humor become a natural part of Jack Ryan’s style, but I miss the character’s analytical side. Here, the focus is more on Ryan being a Jason Bourne or Ethan Hunt type of action hero rather than the strategic thinker from the novels. Director Andrew Bernstein is a veteran of the Jack Ryan series, The Americans, The Outsider, and Fear the Walking Dead, and does a serviceable job helming the action sequences in this movie.
Fans of Tom Clancy’s novels will enjoy this take on Jack Ryan, with some of the action reminiscent of Rainbow Six and the more military action-heavy entries in the Ryanverse. The ending sets up potential for future sequels that could eventually lead Jack Ryan to the higher offices he held in the novels. While Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War trades complexity for cinematic action thrills, it stays true to the spirit of Tom Clancy’s character and offers the most balanced and entertaining feature-film version since Harrison Ford played the part. I would have liked a little more balance between the stunts and the character development, but squeezing the equivalent of an eight-hundred-page novel into a movie is daunting. I just hope the producers take the leap and put Krasinski on-screen with Michael B. Jordan for a Jack Ryan-John Clark team-up movie someday.
Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War premieres on May 20th on Prime Video.