Jordan tries his best, but there is no saving ‘Without Remorse’

Posted on May 7, 2021

By MARK VIOLA

Back in the late ‘90s, while I was in high school, I spent the better part of a year reading all of Tom Clancy’s novels that had been released up to that point, numbering about eight or so at the time. The dense espionage thrillers followed CIA analyst Jack Ryan, a character who would be played by a multitude of actors over the years, including Alec Baldwin in “The Hunt for the Red October,” Harrison Ford in “Patriot Games” and “Clear and Present Danger” and most recently by John Krasinski in Amazon’s “Jack Ryan” television series.

Of the many side characters introduced in Clancy’s “Ryanverse,” one of the most memorable is clandestine operative John Clark, first played on film by Willem Dafoe in “Clear and Present Danger.”

Clark’s origin story was delivered in the 1993 novel “Without Remorse,” which is also the name of the new film very, very loosely based on the book.

The new film brings John Clark, formerly known as John Kelly, back to the big screen, this time with Michael B. Jordan (“Creed”) in the lead role. The film made its debut on Amazon Prime this past weekend after its theatrical release was scrapped due to COVID-19.

As hard as it has proven over the years to adapt Clancy’s often-times dense novels into films, it seems taking his characters and writing new stories for them is even harder, because the further the filmmakers tend to stray from the source material, the worse the result ends up being. Sadly, that is the case with “Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse,” which joins a growing list of disappointing adaptations of the late author’s collection.

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