By Preston Wilder
What’s wrong with Keira Knightley? Why does her mouth hang open after every line? She speaks her lines then just stands there, looking at her co-stars with her jaw slack and lips slightly apart. Is she putting on a come-hither look, or should we be worried? Does she even realise that she’s doing it? Is there some orthodontical issue? Is she waiting to be kissed?
Keira plays the girlfriend role in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, a reboot of the old Tom Clancy action hero (Ryan is played by Chris Pine, star of the mega-successful Star Trek reboot) – and she gets almost nothing to do, which may be why she decided to play the role as a sultry temptress with her mouth hanging open. Keira’s role in the plot is (a) to arrive in Moscow unexpectedly, as a “grand gesture”, and (b) to save the day by guessing where in New York the climactic terrorist attack will take place. She does this by recognising a photo of Wall Street taken by the terrorists – though in fact the photo is surrounded by lots of other photos (not of Wall Street), so it’s not clear why that particular photo is significant. Indeed, Keira herself is surrounded by dozens of top CIA analysts when she makes this discovery, all of whom either failed to recognise Wall Street – not some obscure detail, just a building on Wall Street – or didn’t think it meant anything. Which it doesn’t.
Such rampant silliness is typical of Shadow Recruit, a sub-James Bond spy adventure that might’ve been watchable if it weren’t so ridiculous. Kenneth Branagh, who directed, also plays the villain, a Russian oligarch named Victor Cherevin – and he has the opposite problem to Keira, keeping his mouth clamped tight, as if in permanent displeasure, and speaking his lines through a strangulated Russian accent. Victor is visited in “Moss-cow” by Jack Ryan, a CIA analyst who’s ostensibly carrying out an audit – but Victor knows that Ryan is a spy, and tries to have him killed. Alas, you can’t get the help these days. Victor’s operative, a large African gentleman from Uganda, somehow fails to kill Ryan, even though (a) Ryan is unarmed, (b) they’re alone in a hotel room, (c) Ryan is completely off his guard, believing the African to be his friend, (d) the African can pick his moment to perfection, and (e) he fires a dozen more bullets, even after the first one misses. To quote William Hurt in A History of Violence: “How do you f*** that up?”.
It gets worse, especially for Victor, a ‘poetic’ Russian with a soft spot for Lermontov and a penchant for lines like “Regret! It piles up around us like books we’ve never read!” (memo to Kenneth Branagh: it might be better to stop reminding people that you used to be a Shakespearean actor). He knows Ryan’s true identity but agrees to have dinner with him, during which Ryan gets conspicuously drunk and has a huge fight with girlfriend Cathy, a.k.a. Keira – yet poor trusting Victor never once suspects he’s being taken for a ride, and even signals his thugs not to follow Ryan when the latter leaves the restaurant ‘to clear his head’. Even though Ryan is obviously faking! And the restaurant is directly opposite Victor’s office, where he keeps the codes for the terror attack he’s been planning! Even when Ryan’s sidekick bumps into Victor (to steal his wallet) then bumps into him again (to put it back), the Russian has no clue he’s about to be hustled. With terrorists like that, the War on Terror could be won by a five-year-old.
Is it even worth mentioning that the terror attack seems unnecessary? The Russians have been secretly buying US dollars; if they suddenly dump them, the US economy will collapse. The plan is to dump them right after the attack, for maximum damage – but it’s not like there has to be an attack (right?). Maybe I just didn’t get it – and of course I realise none of this ‘matters’, and the film can be mindlessly enjoyed just by wallowing in the Hollywood images (crafted by the excellent Cypriot DP Haris Zambarloukos) and the battle of Pine’s blue eyes vs. Keira’s half-open mouth; but I don’t see why rampant idiocy should be taken for granted, especially on this scale.
So the film goes on, wasting time and the studio’s money. Victor gets a little speech about “you Americans”. We glimpse a sleeper cell of Russian spies – the Wall Street terrorists – somewhere in the heartland. Kevin Costner turns up (still looking good) as a CIA handler, Ryan drowns the African in a few inches of water, then Victor reveals his secret weapon – a light bulb! Connoisseurs of torture know the merits of the humble light bulb, he explains, threatening to stuff the thing in the girlfriend’s mouth. Do it right, he cackles – looking straight at Keira – and “human beings can’t keep their mouths closed”. You couldn’t make it up.
DIRECTED BY Kenneth Branagh
STARRING Chris Pine, Kenneth Branagh, Keira Knightley, Kevin Costner
US 2014 105 mins.
