There’s a part of me that really wonders how relevant Tom Clancy’s work is today. Oh, I’m sure it can be adapted rather easily to fit today’s more distinct geopolitical climate, but the man’s work was very much a product of the Cold War. That said, Jack Ryan keeps appearing in live action form, and it wouldn’t be too hard for some of Clancy’s other characters to make that leap to the screen big or small.
Point is, Without Remorse is the first of what is probably intended to be a new franchise based around the “Rainbow Six” character of John Kelly, or so I assume since I don’t really know much about Clancy’s work outside of a few Jack Ryan movies and one TV show, and sometimes it’s hard to start one of these with a personal anecdote or some general thoughts on someone’s work when I don’t really have any.
Michael B. Jordan stars as Navy SEAL John Kelly. He and his team get some intel from a shifty CIA deputy director named Ritter (Jamie Bell) on some ISIS fighters. The team goes in and takes out the targets, only they dead men were Russians, not ISIS. Something went wrong, and when Russian agents begin eliminating the members of Kelly’s squad back in the States, it’s only a matter of time before those individuals come for him. Kelly, however, gets out of it personally lucky in that he takes out all but one of the killers when they break into his house, but his pregnant wife Pam (Lauren London) isn’t so fortunate. Kelly, knowing there’s Russian involvement, wants that last man, and getting that man’s name will lead him on what could be one last mission.
As a lead, I know Jordan is more than capable of holding his own, and he has a good deal of onscreen charisma. He should be more than capable of carrying the movie. After all, I’ve seen him do it before in the Creed movies, and his Killmonger was easily one of the more memorable villains in the MCU. So, why didn’t this movie grab me?
I mean, this is based on Clancy’s work, so it shouldn’t be as straightforward as it seems, and indeed it is not. But somehow, the movie just seems rather flat and dark, as in all the light and color seems muted the entire run time. There are a few rather well-executed fight scenes, most notably when Kelly fights off a group of riot gear-wearing prison guards in a small cell, but for much of the movie, it just feels flat. Something like this could be a globe-trotting action/espionage story with a lot of thrills and twists. That stuff is on display, but it just seems rather lifeless.
How something like that happened, I don’t pretend to know. Clancy’s work has been reliably good for producing entertaining movies, and Jordan is a charismatic leading man. The plot is set up in a potentially interesting way and has some requisite twists and turns that theoretically should work. Ultimately, the movie comes across as more ponderous than anything else, I mostly found it a bit dull, punctuated by the occasional effective action sequence, and that is the last thing an action/espionage movie should be.
Grade: C
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