Jack Ryan (2018)

Top comments

1. 

   Siskoid

   Have I ever been truly convinced by any actor playing Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan? I'm not saying that as someone who read any of the books (I've ready some Clancy but no Jack Ryans), just as someone who keeps getting drawn into watching the character on screen. Maybe it's because each take is so different from the others. Slick Alec Baldwin, aging action dad Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, Chris Pine... and now thanks to Amazon Prime, John Krasinski. Krazinski physically towers over everyone and yet seems like a hapless desk jockey most of the time, playing up the character's boy scout attitude to the point of naivete. Well, this is Jack Ryan Year One (like Shadow Recruit was) so it's probably allowed. It's a well put together show, though I'm consistently more interested in his boss played by Wendell Pierce, Ali Suliman's super terrorist (made sympathetic by giving him exclusive rights to flashbacks that show his radicalization), and John Magaro's touching portrayal of a drone pilot whose story invisibly intersects Jack's. Just looking at the tropes in play, there's little to distinguish Jack Ryan from 24 or Homeland other than the forays into the lives of these other characters, but that makes Ryan a bit of a cipher (despite having his own arc and subplot), especially if some of these characters of interest aren't going to be part of a second season.
   
   Jack Ryan's second season on Prime Video trades the Middle East for South America with what is essentially a murder mystery. The whodunit is pretty obvious, but the whydunit is what keeps the momentum going. After two seasons, I still don't know what to make of John Krasinski in the role. He still cuts an odd figure for an action star, and the show doesn't really care about character development (that one guy keeps marrying the same woman? ok), and even in terms of plot, it's a lot of Jack Ryan disobeying orders and people letting it slide cuz he was right once, last season. But it does something right because it made me paranoid about South American instability and strongman tactics come election time. Though it's fiction, it really does feel ripped from the headlines, five minutes in the future. Oh and there's a Tim Horton's joke, which tickled my Canadian funny bone. Never wearing out its welcome at 8 episodes, I'm up for more, but the show's gotta figure out how to better motivate "shifting loyalties"; it too often seems like characters are helping Ryan because the script told them to.
   
   Season 3: I was ready to bail out of Jack Ryan Season 3 even by episode 4, at which point it picks up considerably, but... This far in, Krasinski's Jack Ryan still feels like cipher, and I'm less and less invested in the rest of the CIA personnel as well. It's just a lot of "Jack Ryan brings intel, no one believes him, he's proven right, rince-repeat", which you'd think would stop happening after a while. The season's arc this time takes us back to the Cold War, as a cabal of rogue Russian hardliners try to start a war between Russia and the United States - almost ripped from the headlines, except that we're in some kind of parallel reality where the Russian president is a reasonable dove, so there's a bit of cognitive dissonance there. As has been the case since the first season, it's the "guest" characters who are most interesting - the old Russian intelligence agent, the new Czech President and her father - which seems a formula to exploit. Episode 6 seems to have the big climax, but there are further complications so it goes to 8 for a further climax where Ryan, uhm, mostly stands around and waits for other people to make the calls. Well, he'll always have episode 6. One question lingers: Am I gonna do this to myself again?
   
   Season 4: While I feel compelled to watch Jack Ryan material, I'm glad Season 4 of the new show brings it to an end (I guess it COULD continue, but that's what they announced). It's never been a bad show, but it's never quite clicked with me. Maybe I just like my spycraft without so much paramilitary gun play, and a lot of this is predicated on the CIA being made up of, like, 5 people. This last season has a rather abstract threat that (as usual) makes the first half a little dull, even though the action and suspense pick up considerably in the back half. There's more of an attempt to include Jack's future spouse Cathy in the proceedings, and there's a big subplot about confirmation hearings, but mostly, after previous seasons going to the Middle East, South America and then Europe, this story goes 'round the world hitting almost every continent, including Asia and Africa. At the end of the run, Jack hasn't really shed his label of cipher and the other CIA people are all more interesting, except maybe new addition Michael Peña, who is a great comic actor, but is just stone-faced and bordering on non-performance as a badass. 5 years 7 months ago

See all comments

Friends

Login to see which of your friends have seen this movie!