What a viewFrom Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime, to Atelier on Netflix, what to binge watch this weekend
Making an unlikely action hero of John Krasinski, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan ticks all of the spy-drama boxes, while Japanese show Atelier goes behind the scenes – and seams – at an exclusive lingerie brand
The movie Howard: A New Breed of Hero (1986) promised exactly that. But Howard was a duck. Actually, he was eight actors in a US$2 million duck suit (although not all at the same time) in a dire adventure-comedy overseen by one George Lucas, no less.
So much for the heroes of 1986. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan similarly promises a new breed of hero, albeit one rebooted from the mortal remains of feature-film Ryan incarnations Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and Chris Pine. Now st(r)eaming through all eight series-one episodes on Amazon Prime, as binge-watches go, the action-heavy political thriller rewards even the most lukewarm viewer, despite requiring an investment of 64 minutes for its longest instalment.
And our hero? What’s he like? Well, kind of dorky. There’s no duck suit in sight but there is a repeat offender: a J Crew-style jumper. Jack is preppy in all the predictable places and even rows single scull on the Potomac River.
Perhaps this is fitting. John Krasinski, star and executive producer of the show, is an Ivy Leaguer with the sort of malleable face that might have inspired a Spitting Image puppet. Meanwhile, Jack is a supposed desk-piloting CIA intelligence analyst, but disrupt his moral code or prod his self-righteous indignation and you’d better stand back. This maverick ex-US Marine is handy in a fist or firefight and is quickly on the scene – often accompanied by his boss, grumpy Jim Greer (Wendell Pierce, The Wire) – wherever trouble is gurgling. Opprobrium from the pen-pushers upstairs at Langley? Water off our new hero’s back.
So can Jack ride to the rescue before any number of disasters threaten our species, from a terrorist mastermind hell bent on blowing our cities to sawdust, to radioactive powder sent swirling through the air conditioners? What do you think? Jack is the well-presented cavalry coming over the hill at the eleventh hour to save the world and woo the girl – in this case the comely Abbie Cornish, playing Dr Catherine Mueller.
