3 Things I Hate about Without Remorse (2021)

 

Is there possibility of the new John Clark meeting up with the new Jack Ryan?

There was a time when a trip to the mall wasn’t complete without me digging for Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series at a second hand book shop. I was able to collect many including the spin-off novel Without Remorse. For those not in the know John Clark was Jack Ryan’s top field man since Ryan was more into analysis and policy especially when the books made him the President of the United States.

2 other actors have played the famous Tom Clancy character. Willem Dafoe is my favorite in Clear and Present Danger. In that movie Clark organized an off book special ops team who were later on abandoned by the bosses in Langley when the plan went south. 

John Clark was as a spy who knew the lay of the land, its people and the target which enabled him to plan an op. The movie also showed him as a soldier able to gain the respect of the team. Best part is that Clark and Ryan met up: analysis and field working as a team and risking it all to save the ops team.

Liev Schreiber story in Sum of All Fears was the typical secret agent type, brutal and effective. Assassinations deep in enemy territory may be cool and all but that’s just one dimension of the spy genre. He didn’t answer to Jack Ryan as much as Clear and Present Danger did so I consider him only as the 2nd best.

Interesting tactic, getting half naked and wet before fighting prison guards

Michael B. Jordan’s version, an origin story, is the worst of the bunch. He plays John Kelly, which was John Clark’s life before joining the CIA. The one thing that went right is Jordan’s physical presence, but does that make him a spy? Here are the 3 things I hate from the John Clark origin story Without Remorse.

 

Lt. Commander Karen Greer

Drink, that's an order - Karen Greer

Karen Greer is a derivative of James Greer who is Jack Ryan’s boss. Played by Jodie Turner-Smith, Commander Greer is supposed to be John Kelly’s commanding officer. She sucks. Is she supposed to be non-binary?

I don’t know Jodie as an actress but from what I see on the internet, she’s married, she’s a woman, she’s a model. Even granted giving interviews is not acting, I like how she talks.

Karen Greer comes off as bland and lacking in personality, especially one that requires being the superior of John Kelly. It’s as if she’s trying to tone down her natural aura just to appear non-binary. At least that’s my theory. 

And as a model she has this kind pretty face that doesn’t give off the hardness that one would imagine from the special forces, much less its leader.

 

Just a Shootout

John on a perch clearing the way for his team

The only missing piece from the attack on John Kelly’s home was the surviving assassin. John had managed to kill all but one. 

When he did get that name it became just a question of how to get to that unnamed Russian city to get the target. Upon reaching the target there was a lengthy discussion of the politics behind how the US picks its wars, after that is the big firefight. And it is disappointing.

What makes a spy – or an assassin – cool is his ability to go anywhere, kill anyone, and then fade away. Like getting intelligence, to be a successful assassin means being able to blend in and mingle up until the appropriate time. 

 

Target location

 

What you don't want to see in a spy operation

Without Remorse highlighted only John’s ability at brute force through his physicality or his ability in a firefight. There’s none of the subtlety, the chess game or the cat and mouse chase that normally comes with a spy genre.

 

Is there a Black Russian?

The strike team without Ritter is 2 whites, 1 hispanic, 2 blacks

I know the United States had an entire cotton industry manned by African slaves before the Civil War. My question is did the Russians get involved with the African slave trade too?

I had this same problem with Denzel Washington’s the Equalizer (2014) reboot, but to be fair Denzel had style. He was able to muster different sections of society, contacts with the Feds, and friends in the community on what was wrong. He was able to attack and retreat when he chooses. He was proficient with electronics which is useful for intelligence gathering.

However, Robert McCall’s attack on Vladimir Pushkin in Moscow was over the top. How do you get close to the head of the Russian mob when most likely you’re the only black skinned individual in the country? How do you blend in before you pounce?

Tell me, are they equipped not to leave a trace?

John Kelly’s orders were a quiet extraction; leave no trace, they said. But look at the team, racially composed of at most 3 white personnel (with Robert Ritter), 1 Hispanic, and 2 African Americans; armed to the teeth like Special Forces, going after a target deep within a Russian city.

Between the guns and vests in urban operations or Hispanics and African Americans built like soldiers walking down a Russian street, that operations was always bound for trouble.