Movies based on the Tom Clancy spy thriller novels have spawned a whole lot of reboots, remakes and semi-sequels throughout, starring everyone from Baldwins to Fords to Afflecks. The latest entry, Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse is surprisingly the best entry in the series since The Hunt for Red October, however as most of the films have been kind of crummy it isn’t exactly a deep bench. Maybe the batting average is solid with a Jack Ryan-verse movie every two decades but Without Remorse is one of the good ones, concerning a mission of vengeance with lots of new cold war overtones. The action is hard hitting, the lead actor is great, and there are multiple conspiracies and double-crosses which is mandatory in the spy thriller genre.
Without Remorse: Incoherent mess
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Without Remorse
Direction: Stefano Sollima
BY VINAYAK CHAKRAVORTY
With remorse, they ought to admit they goofed up. Without Remorse ticks all the boxes one expects in a Hollywood action/ espionage/ patriotic thriller. There s a hunk gunning for revenge, lots of synchronised ultra-violence, trusty American military acing the Russians. There s the dirty insider in the ranks too, as it happens in all spy dramas on screen. Yet the film forgets to tick the all-important box of cohesive storytelling. It turns into an incoherent mess as the minutes pass.
The fact doesn t help that this has been aggressively pushed as a spin-off of Tom Clancy s Jack Ryan universe. Without Remorse is based on Clancy s 1993 novel of the same name, which traces the origin of John Clark (a.k.a John Kelly), billed as Clancy s second-most popular creation after Ryan. It s a hype that such a poorly-executed film can ill-afford.
In the last few years, screenwriter Taylor Sheridan brought something steely and smart to the action genre with the drug-cartel thriller Sicario and its politically provocative sequel Sicario 2, a Trumpian nightmare of border-incursion, directed by Stefano Sollima. Sheridan and Sollima are reunited for this movie, but it is a by-the-numbers macho adventure not unlike something from the era of VHS rental, Rambo and tough-guy military mavericks.
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Last modified on Wed 28 Apr 2021 12.02 EDT
In the last few years, screenwriter Taylor Sheridan brought something steely and smart to the action genre with the drug-cartel thriller Sicario and its politically provocative sequel Sicario 2, a Trumpian nightmare of border-incursion, directed by Stefano Sollima. Sheridan and Sollima are reunited for this movie, but it is a by-the-numbers macho adventure not unlike something from the era of VHS rental, Rambo and tough-guy military mavericks being sold down the river by the pointy-headed creeps in suits back in Washington DC or Langley, home of the CIA.
This film is based on Tom Clancyâs 1993 bestseller, originally set during the Vietnam war, but now updated to the situation in Syria. Michael B Jordan is Navy Seal John Clark, whose pregnant wife is murdered on US soil, apparently by FSB agents in revenge for John taking out Russian special forces in Aleppo as part of a hostage rescue. So Without Remorse becomes essentially an unidire