Jack Ryan Plot Summary:
CIA analyst Jack Ryan (John Krasinski) uncovers a unique financial strategy developed by a terrorist group lead by Suleiman (Ali Suliman). Along with his new boss Jim Greer (Wendell Pierce) Ryan is taken from the desk to the forefront of the war on terror.
Please note this review is based on the first three episode of the Amazon Prime series, a full review of the series will be published at a later date.
Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan might be one of the most unusual shows to premiere in recent memory.
The negatives of this new Amazon Prime series, and there are plenty of them, should dictate this latest reboot of Tom Clancy’s All-American hero is a complete dumpster fire.
Yet, the positives of the series, almost completely negate these flaws, resulting in a series that’s good, but could’ve (and still could) a great series.
The biggest problem Jack Ryan has is that we’ve seen this premise done to death. We’ve got another Middle Eastern terrorist plot uncovered by a lone government agent, and it’s up to that agent and his team to stop them.
In the last 25-30 years we’ve seen this plot rolled out how many times? If you’ve lost count, there’s a good reason for that, it’s one of the most safe plot choices for an action series, or film. Hell, this idea is even tired for a Jack Ryan vehicle.
The plot’s unoriginality is not helped by the utter predictability of the initial episodes. You can see plot twists coming a mile away. You can guess the actions of nearly every character before it even happens. A show based on intrigue and espionage should not be this easy to figure out.
Then there’s our titular character. For a show named “Jack Ryan,” the first three episodes spend a lot of time on everyone but Jack Ryan. To be fair, the first episode does give us some insight into Ryan’s backstory, and there are glimpses of a personality shown. Yet, for the most part it’s a lot of stoic looks, and scant, typical espionage/war on terror actioneer dialogue from our hero.
This is even more frustrating because you have John Krasinski, a guy known for his charisma, standing around being silent like he was in the sequel to A Quiet Place. To make matters worse, the series doesn’t give he, and the always outstanding Wendell Pierce, time to build chemistry.
Wow, Jack Ryan sounds like a real piece of garbage, right?
Well, every criticism here would indicate that, but somehow, and someway Jack Ryan manages to be a fairly engaging and entertaining series.
A lot of this falls on John Krasinski. He’s just so damn likable that you immediately are behind from the first moment we see him. We’re all in on him as the latest, and possibly one of the most natural incarnations of Jack Ryan. Krasinski is able to graft the best parts of the previous Ryan portrayals and make them inherently his. He embodies the headstrong conviction of Chris Pine’s Ryan, the All-American toughness of Harrison Ford’s interpretation, and the nervously cerebral aspects of Alec Baldwin’s portrayal and creates something special.
This creation is way more complex than you’d expect from a run-and-gun spy series. He’s able to carry Ryan’s literal and figurative scars into battle, something none of the Ryan actors have really done. There’s always been reluctance to step into the fray, but it’s always stated, and it’s only shown in Baldwin’s portrayal. We do get to see glimpses of that patented Krasinski charm, and wit — something the series definitely could use more of in the right places.
While the show is telegraphed and wildly predictable, the action sequences are awesome. It doesn’t hurt that veteran directors Daniel Sackheim (The X-Files, Game of Thrones, and the good years of The Walking Dead), Patricia Riggen (The 33), and Morten Tyldum (Oscar nominated for Imitation Game) are at the helm. They create these awesome, tense, nerve-shredders that will have you white-knuckling through the action. The trio also get a tremendous amount out of their actors even when the script seems to betray them with on the nose dialogue, or weird, heavy-handed storylines.
Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan is a hard show to recommend. If you’re already a Jack Ryan fan, or you love spy thrillers, or War on Terror-set fiction, you’ll totally love it. If this isn’t your thing, you’re probably going to give this a hard pass. Some people will view this series through a very political lens — and will love it or hate it based on that.
However, for this reviewer, I will leave it like this — Jack Ryan is a solid show that has the potential to either be fantastic, or something I forget about by year’s end.
Rating: 7 out of 10
