From a certain point of view, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War is emblematic of the state of modern filmmaking. For one thing, a resurgence of interest in Clancy’s Reaganite spy thrillers makes sense in an age of renewed American nationalism where an emboldened political right seeks to reestablish the hegemon through violent means abroad. Then, like the newest Star Wars film hitting theaters this week, Ghost War is not a standalone adventure but a sequel to a television series. And where previous Jack Ryan films could sport evocative titles like The Hunt for Red October or A Clear and Present Danger, this 2026 version is saddled with an exercise in branding.
Despite being right-wing fantasies, those other films were also at least engaged with the geopolitical concerns of their time, dealing with defecting Soviet submarine commanders, rogue IRA operatives, covert U.S. operations in Latin America, and neo-nazism. What screenwriters Aaron Rabin and John Krasinski have crafted here is an elision of the real world, a clichéd fantasy of stateless, nonideological rogue agents that grants their film plausible deniability against accusations of any ideology of its own. Good luck calling this Jack Ryan fascist, bozo — there are no politics here. No sir, this is the type of CIA operation liberals and conservatives alike can celebrate as our favorite heavily-armed analyst keeps the forces of evil at bay and shields our eyes from the actions of Ryan’s real world counterparts. Hey, what’s the CIA up to these days, anyway?
Ghost War finds Jack Ryan (Krasinski) living the civilian life in the wake of his retirement after the events of Amazon’s television series. Just when he thinks he’s out, his old boss, CIA deputy director James Greer (Wendell Pierce), pulls him back in, sending him on a mission to Dubai to meet an agent in the field. Soon Ryan’s rendezvous is interrupted by an assassin’s bullet, and he is whisked away by MI-6 operative Emma Marlow (Sienna Miller) so that he can be let in on the plot of the movie. Turns out, there is a terrorist cell made up of the badass secret soldiers from a clandestine joint operation that was put to ground for its cruel methods. They want revenge on the world for abandoning them and want to unleash the wave of violence against which they believed they were the only defense.
Our guys will put a stop to this, of course, and the rest of the film plays out how you’d expect. Rife with cliché, Ghost War’s dialogue borrows so heavily from the spy-action movie playbook that you could quote along the first time you watch the film. The action scenes are perfunctory, over-edited, and underconceived for their length, but they are at least functional. Were this just a few episodes of the Jack Ryan streaming show, this might be perfectly serviceable, but nothing about the project justifies its presentation as a feature film.
Yet the biggest problem with this Jack Ryan movie is its Jack Ryan. Desperate to shed his smug sitcom character image, Krasinski has spent more than a decade throwing himself into more serious, hard-edged parts in everything from Michael Bay’s 13 Hours to his own A Quiet Place franchise, where he’s had more success as a director than a star. Krasinski has now played Jack Ryan across 30 episodes of TV and a movie, vastly overwhelming runner-up Harrison Ford’s Ryan output of a measly two films, but he has evidently not grown into the role. When asked to perform a scene with gravitas, he simply can’t access the weight of seriousness. In car chases and shootouts, Jack Ryan performs like a super soldier while the actor playing him looks absurd. Staring down the barrel of a gun only to see the stern grimace of Jim from The Office is as risible an image as it sounded when his casting was first announced last decade. Harrison Ford’s Clancy duology are not as good as The Hunt for Red October for many reasons, but his sturdy, gruff presence and believability in all situations elevate those films, especially Patriot Games, which wouldn’t even be passable without him. Krasinski only elevates his film from dull to laughable.
DIRECTOR: dAndrew Bernstein; CAST: John Krasinski, Sienna Miller, Wendell Pierce, Michael Kelly, JJ Feild; DISTRIBUTOR: Prime Video; STREAMING: May 20; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 45 min.
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