Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit is a story of intelligence mixed with big bangs
It may be billed as an intelligent action thriller, but a lot of things still blow up in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, Chris Pine and Kenneth Branagh tell Kavita Daswani
FILMGOERS MIGHT NEED to put their thinking caps on, as the new Jack Ryan movie is billed as a “thinking man’s action thriller”. The “thinking” bit is there because director Kenneth Branagh has moved the story away from the usually rarefied setting of an action movie into the real world, kind of. Although a bomb might threaten to level New York in the typical manner of action films, the entire world is facing financial devastation at the same time. Well, that should ring a bell or two.
But as intelligent as Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit aspires to be, its star Chris Pine has a more down-to-earth memory of the shoot: mainly that of having to get up early for some 8am close-up shots. “Who in their right mind does that?” asks Pine.
“It’s the worst. Close-ups suck anyway.”
That brilliant idea came from none other than Branagh, the venerated British actor-director who made Shakespeare hip with films such as Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet. Branagh, whose first thriller Dead Again was less than spectacular, also acts in this latest movie about the Jack Ryan character.
“Normally the close-ups are done at 8pm, but everyone is tired,” Branagh says.
“At 8am, people are a little jangly, and it’s good, because it’s a thriller and you are trying to keep people excited.”