Without Remorse

Without Remorse
Starring Michael B. Jordan, Jodie Turner-Smith, Jamie Bell, Guy Pearce
Directed by Stefano Sollima

How do you make audiences interested in a generic, by-the-books political thriller? You throw in a big- name actor who pours his entire heart and soul into the performance, lift the name of a famed, respected political thriller author, and include a lot of gunfights and explosions, and hope that the audience won't notice that they've witnessed something so bland, predictable, and eerily tone deaf. Thus is the case with "Without Remorse" - offering a big-name actor (Michael B. Jordan), a famed, respected political thriller author (Tom Clancy), and more than enough explosions and gunfights than your lil ole red-white-and-blue bleeding heart can muster. Yet they failed in the end result - you know you're watching something totally incoherent, bland, predictable, and tone deaf.

John Kelly (Michael B. Jordan) is a Navy SEAL who, along with his Lieutenant Commander Karen Greer (Jodie Turner-Smith) and his other men, rescue a CIA operative in Syria under the presumed Assad paramilitary members, but learn during the raid that they're actually Russians, something that Deputy Director Robert Ritter (Jamie Bell) failed to mention. Returning home, John and his men are targeted by assassins, who dispatch his men and then murder John's wife Pam (Lauren London) and their unborn daughter. John kills most of the men, but one gets away - and the CIA doesn't want to pursue him, citing international relations and tensions with Russia. John presses the issue and with the approval of Secretary of Defense Thomas Clay (Guy Pearce), he sets out to Russia with Greer, Ritter, and a new team to find the man who escaped and to get revenge for the murder of his wife and daughter, but uncovers something more than what he was told.

Tom Clancy wrote "Without Remorse" back in 1993, and the film adaptation sat in developmental hell for over twenty years, with big names like Keanu Reeves, Tom Hardy, and Gary Sinise in talks to play the role of John Kelly, but every attempt fell flat until recently, with Michael B. Jordan taking on the mantle. Apart from the title and character names, however, there's nothing in the film remotely resembling the book, something Clancy fans would probably be outraged about. The story is modernized and almost completely changed, and tries to be smarter than it was, but surprisingly it was rather easy to understand, unlike most political thrillers that weave interconnected thoughts and ideas into a hodgepodge of a mess. Yet they want you to think it's that type of film.

The best part of the film is the beginning, up until the point after John's wife is murdered. It's exciting and unpredictable, something that seemingly pushes the momentum forward, but after that it becomes just a dull, generic political thriller with the USA going against the Russians like old times, with lots of shootouts and tense music that tries to heighten the tension but fails to deliver. You don't particularly care about the purpose of the violence, you just want to see it - and even then it's disappointing and not at all exciting.

Michael B. Jordan can effortlessly blend drama and action films with equal measure, shining bright in films ranging from "Just Mercy" to "Black Panther," and once again he gives it his all here, but he isn't given a lot to work with. He begins the film the same way as it ends, as a Navy SEAL who's a total ba who can tackle numerous armed men at once, shoot with pinpoint precision, and apparently never die. The only thing that changes is his motive, when he finds his wife and unborn daughter murdered, and goes on a rampage for their vengeance. Even then, though, you don't really feel a connection to the woman who's memory he's fighting for, as Pam (played brilliantly by Lauren London) barely gets any screen time before she's unceremoniously dispatched, the victim of the old trope of "the woman who gets killed to rile up our main character to kick it up a notch." 

"Without Remorse" also tries to make itself relevant to today's society, offering up a lackluster reason as to why the US would want to go to war with Russia: "because we're too busy fighting ourselves and don't know who the real enemy is." It's surprisingly tone deaf to offer this reasoning to go to war, especially in explaining it to an African American character - basically we want to fight someone so we'll settle for fighting against each other because that's how we do things.

Offering very little to distinguish it from the average movie-bin film outings, "Without Remorse" serves as a generic, by-the-books thriller that would've been easily forgotten if not for the overly dedicated performance from Michael B. Jordan.

The Score: C