PAWN SACRIFICE (WITHOUT REMORSE)

Say the name Tom Clancy and you probably think of Jack Ryan.

You probably think of 'The Hunt for Red October,' 'Patriot Games,' 'Clear and Present Danger,' 'The Sum of All Fears' and 'Shadow Recruit'.

You will almost certainly think of Harrison Ford battling terrorists and duplicitous politicians and, before him, Alec Baldwin trying to guide Sean Connery's defecting Soviet Union submarine commander to safety.

You might also think of Ben Affleck, Chris Pine or recently John Krasinski's deeds of derring-do as Ryan in the Amazon TV series.

However Amazon is now diving into the Baltimore author's back catalogue in a bid to create another franchise.

John T Clark - whose real name was John Kelly - was Clancy's second most popular character featuring in some of the Jack Ryan novels and stories of his own.

Fans of 'Clear and Present Danger' will recognise him as the CIA operator in Colombia portrayed by Willem Dafoe in Philip Noyce's 1994 box office hit.

Originally a Navy SEAL, he was also brought to life by Liev Schreiber opposite Ben Affleck's Ryan in Phil Alden Robinson's hit 2002 adaptation 'The Sum of All Fears'.

Now Italian director and screenwriter Stefano Sollima has been given the task of turning Clancy's 1993 Clark/Kelly origins tale 'Without Remorse' into a small screen movie.

Sollima would appear to be a smart choice as director.

Having helmed and written episodes of of 'Gomorrah,' ' and most recently 'ZeroZeroZero' and also directed 'Sicario 2: Day of Soldado,' he clearly knows a thing or two about spectacular big and small screen gunplay.

But he also has recruited one of Hollywood's most exciting young stars Michael B Jordan as Kelly, with British actors Jodie Turner-Smith from 'Queen and Slim' and Jamie Bell and Aussie veteran Guy Pearce along for the ride.

At the start of Sollima's version of Clancy's tale, which screenwriters Taylor Sheridan and Will Staples have updated by setting it in the pre-pandemic world of espionage, we see Kelly and his fellow Navy SEALs in an operation in Aleppo alongside Jamie Bell's CIA Deputy Director Robert Ritter.

Their mission is to rescue a CIA agent captured by forces loyal to Syria's President Assad.

However during the extraction operation, it becomes clear that Kelly and his colleagues are actually battling Russian soldiers.

Angered that Ritter appears to have known this information but withheld it, Kelly tackles the CIA Deputy Director about it as they leave by helicopter but his concerns are brushed off.

Kelly returns home to his pregnant wife, Lauren London's Pam Kelly and is unwinding three months later when members of the Navy SEAL mission start to be assassinated on US soil as they go about their civilian lives.

The killers call at Kelly's home in the middle of the night but he happens to be awake.

Kelly confronts them, unaware that they have already murdered Pam in their bed.

In the subsequent gun battle, he kills all but one of the assassins who he realises have been dispatched by the Russian secret service, the FSB to avenge the Syrian operation.

Kelly, however, is badly wounded and realises his pregnant wife is dead.

Rushed to hospital, he barely survives the attack while his boss, Jodie Turner-Smith's Navy SEAL Lieutenant Commander Karen Greer tackles Ritter about his knowledge of the FSB's activities.

As a grief stricken Kelly recovers, Greer, Ritter and Guy Pearce's US Secretary of Defence Thomas Clay meet to understand how the FSB were able to locate and assassinate most of those on the Navy SEAL mission in Aleppo.

They also contemplate how the Government and its military should respond.

While news of suspected Russian involvement in the attacks leaks to the media, putting already strained relations between the White House. and Kremlin under further pressure,  Kelly is discharged from hospital.

With the CIA reluctant to investigate the full details of the murders of her colleagues, Greer informs Kelly who starts to take matters into his own hands.

Tracking down the Russian diplomat who issued the assassins their passports, he storms his car and forces him to give up the name of the surviving FSB operative before killing him.

Kelly is arrested at the scene and is imprisoned.

Greer and Kelly are able to secure his temporary release from jail to enable him to participate in a mission to track down the escaped assassin, Brett Gelman's Victor Rykov in Russia.

However when Greer, Ritter, Kelly and colleagues on a CIA black ops team arrive in Murmansk, they soon realise other dynamics are at play that will endanger their lives.

Given his action pedigree, you would presume Sollima would be perfectly equipped for breathing new life into Clancy's Cold War characters.

Think again.

'Without Remorse' is oddly devoid of thrills or passion.

It is basically a series of long, boring gun battles threaded together with plodding dialogue crafted by Sheridan who has written for 'Veronica Mars' and Staples who has worked on the video game 'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3'.

It has all the gung ho of a video game but little depth.

The action sequences dutifully play out with no emotional investment.

Apart from the noise of roaring gunfire and the occasional explosion, the film offers little else.

Jordan does what he can with a leaden script and handles the heroics well enough.

The same is true of Turner-Smith and Bell, while Brett Gelman gets to ham it up either lying on a floor or sitting in a chair.

As the only cast member stuck behind a desk, Pearce suffers the most with no gunplay to take his mind off a script that is full of unconvincing bluster.

The talented Colman Domingo is also relegated to a bit part as a Pastor.

With its paranoia about US politicians and Machiavellian moves in Washington, Clancy's tale seems oddly dated.

It may well be tailor made for the Fox News devouring, Deep State conspiracy believing MAGA crowd.

However 'Without Remorse' feels tired, dull and very regressive. 

And that is not surprising because the adaptation of Clancy's novel has languished in development hell at Paramount Studios for 20 years as the world moved on.

For a film that also prides itself in its big gun battles, there is a remarkable squeamishness about showing blood.

The wounds sported by Kelly and others look like something from a 1980s B movie action thriller.

As Kelly crawls his way to his dead wife's bed after the FSB squad shoots him, the lack of bloodstains on his floor is at least good news for those tasked with cleaning the crime scene.

By the time the credits roll, the prospect of more John Kelly stories making it onto the big or small screen is about as appealing as a tooth extraction.

We don't need another "hero".

Give us more nuanced global political thrillers instead.

('Without Remorse' was released dor streaming on Amazon Prime on April 30, 2021)