Ryan’s hope

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit reboots a franchise that was never exactly a franchise in the first place—not in the movies, anyhow. Author Tom Clancy created the character in his first novel, The Hunt for Red October, then continued in others, some set earlier than Red October, filling in Ryan’s story as they went along. Clancy took Ryan from his early military retirement after injuries from a helicopter crash, through his rise at the CIA and to two terms as U.S. president. In the movies, Ryan has been played by Alec Baldwin in The Hunt for Red October (1990), Harrison Ford in Patriot Games (’92) and Clear and Present Danger (’94), and Ben Affleck in The Sum of All Fears (2002).

Now it’s Chris Pine’s turn, who gives us a Ryan that more or less follows Clancy’s arc, though born 40 years later. This Ryan is an American college student in England when the September 11 attacks hit, and he enlists in the war on terror (rather than Clancy’s Cold War, as remote to today’s moviegoers as the War of 1812). He’s still invalided out of the service, but this time the chopper crash happens in Afghanistan. He still meets and courts med student Cathy Muller (Keira Knightley), and by movie’s end, they are well on their way to the altar.

While recovering from his injuries, Ryan is approached by Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner), a character original to Adam Cozad and David Koepp’s screenplay, and persuaded to work for the CIA as a stockbroker, keeping an eye on financial matters in the name of national security—the mole of Wall Street.

An undercover investment banker isn’t the most promising idea for an espionage thriller, so we’re pretty sure something big will draw Jack Ryan away from his cubicle. Sure enough, he catches wind of some suspicious activity having to do with U.S. Treasury bonds. We know this because we catch a glimpse (for about seven-trillionths of a second) of transactions flashing across Ryan’s computer screen, and we see Pine furrow his brow.

Well, there’s nothing for it but to send Ryan to Moscow—ostensibly for his Wall Street firm, but really for the CIA—to get to the bottom of all this activity. And that’s where Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit really gets going.

That’s where Ryan—after a brief unpleasantness with a would-be assassin, whom he disposes of by drowning him in his hotel bathtub—crosses paths with Viktor Cherevin (Kenneth Branagh, who also directed). Cherevin is the brains behind what Ryan rightly deduces is a sinister scheme to bring down the U.S. economy, and their first meeting comes off in classic Bond-and-Goldfinger fashion, as a series of probes, parries and politely veiled threats. It also contains the movie’s most memorable exchange: Cherevin: “You Americans always think you’re direct. Maybe you’re just rude.” Ryan: “You Russians always think you’re poets. Maybe you’re just touchy.”

Ryan’s girlfriend Cathy surprises him by turning up in Moscow, where their confrontation brings on the second-most-memorable exchange: “I’m in the CIA.” “Oh, thank God! I thought you were having an affair.” It also brings Harper out of the background, and the three of them must think on their feet and come up with an elaborate ruse to hack into Cherevin’s computers and figure out what he’s up to. This central scene, played out over dinner at a tony Moscow restaurant, is the movie’s strongest and most suspenseful sequence.

A movie like this can hardly get by these days without the obligatory car chase at speeds approaching the speed of sound, and the screenwriters dutifully provide one, but at least they wait until the action moves back to New York, where we can believe that the hero knows his way around.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is a decent enough first cut, slick and stylish, and it should make a decent sequel fallback for Paramount Pictures, in case they can’t lure Tom Cruise back for another round of Mission: Impossible.

Chris Pine as President Ryan—now there’s something to look forward to.