The Shadow Recruit's Mission Results

Stephon Hall

Sports Editor

     The newest installment of the Tom Clancy film, Shadow Recruit, is a reboot of sorts. Since 2002’s The Sum Of All Fears starring Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan, eventual attempts to bring back the series didn’t do as hoped for movie studio, Paramount.

     Sam Raimi, who once helmed the original Spider-Man film series from 2002-2007, was tapped to direct the newest installment to give his fresh take on the series, but nothing turned up, because he was working on a potential fourth Spider-Man film, which, we now know as The Amazing Spider-Man, sans all of the Raimi-isms. 

     Chris Pine, who plays Captain James T. Kirk in the Star Trek movies was on tap to be in the next version of this series in 2009, but had to commit to that film. Before Pine ever stepped foot into the shoes of the CIA fable, Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and the aforementioned Affleck portrayed the character. So how’s Pine in relation to his predecessors? Good enough for me. Frankly, I was surprised that he handled the weight of this person with care. I won’t say it was a transcending performance, but he was very good overall. 

     Some of the geopolitical stuff did go over my head a little and so did some of the book references, like when Jack and Cathy, played by Keira Knightley, meet for the first time, when Jack is recouping from his severe injuries from a plane accident in Afghanistan. When witnessing the rebirth of a high-profile character like Ryan, especially, when you haven’t read the books, confusion is to be expected when you’re trying to figure out this universe. 

     It wasn’t that the entire franchise was unfamiliar to me, I was just a little unaccustomed to some stuff here. The plot itself has to do with Ryan working in a covert role at a stock exchange in New York. His job is to keep tabs on financial transactions from various parts of the world to make sure that the system isn’t being gamed from someone on the outside. Then, it’s discovered that a geopolitical partner goes in a different direction from that of the United States, Ryan realizes that the money from Russia (yeah, they’re in the news, a lot, these days) is being hidden from plain site. It’s an interesting angle that I wish went further in the closing minutes of the film, but it did its job.

     Kenneth Branagh and Kevin Costner play important roles here, with Branagh (who also directed this film) playing Viktor Cheverin, the person in control of the funds, while Costner plays a father figure type to Ryan. 

     The acting is top-notch by entire cast. It’ll take time getting used to the actors playing these characters, if you haven’t followed the novels or  films, considering it took a while for this film to be developed, unfamiliarity is sure to be abound. It runs at a solid pace with some nice plot twists throughout the movie. In a time where the suspense genre needed something different, Shadow Recruit is the movie for you.