This movie begins, as so many contemporary espionage pictures do, with men at laptops being interrupted by men with guns: In Dubai, a covert intelligence outpost is infiltrated by a small posse of men with high-caliber fast-shooting weapons. Their stolid, silver-haired commander has given only one instruction: “No hesitation.” The carnage is considerable.
And so, Wendell Pierce as an intelligence leader, James Greer, heads to New York’s Greenwich Village to track down Jack Ryan, a onetime intelligence analyst turned reluctant field operative. When he finds him, he’s jogging — but he also runs a hedge fund.
The author Tom Clancy’s original conception of the Ryan character was that of a patriotic Everyman whose reticence about getting into James Bond stuff was conquered by his sense of duty. This film, whose full title is “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War,” is co-produced and co-written by the actor John Krasinski, who played Ryan on an Amazon Prime series, but makes his feature debut in the role here. He has little definition beyond an enviable standard of living before he’s pulled back into action.
Partnered with a buddy, Mike November (Michael Kelly), the two joke about their ostensible assignment: “You and I both know it’s never meeting a guy.” Among the figures they do meet is Emma Marlow (Sienna Miller), who delivers some unsavory facts about the people Ryan is working for.
The director, Andrew Bernstein, keeps the globe-trotting plot, which Krasinski formulated with the screenwriter Noah Oppenheim (“A House of Dynamite”), galloping along until a final reckoning back where all the nastiness started. Take a guess what Jack says to the bad guy once they meet face to face.
Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War Rated R for language, violence and themes. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Watch on Prime Video.
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