Plenty of Remorse

A review of 'Tom Clancy's Without Remorse'.

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There are few greater crimes in cinema than wasting the talents of a quality actor; Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse offends at a level that’s almost mind-boggling. How does one take Michael B. Jordan—one of the most charismatic stars around—and make a boring action movie? It’s not clear what that process looks like behind the scenes, but somehow the creators of Without Remorse figured out how to do so. 

The film follows Navy SEAL John Kelly (Jordan) as he attempts to find the final member of a Russian hit squad who attempted to kill him and killed his pregnant wife, Pam, in the process. He gets some help from former SEAL teammate Karen Greer (Jodie Turner-Smith), CIA officer Robert Ritter (Jamie Bell), and Secretary of Defense Thomas Clay (Guy Pearce). Pearce too is utterly wasted in the film, getting very little screen time and being relegated to a two-dimensional authority figure role despite being the biggest star in the movie behind Jordan. 

It’s difficult to describe the plot of Without Remorse in detail because things just kind of happen. The word “convoluted” may be a tad overused in describing film plots, but it seems particularly apt here. I found myself rewinding every now and then under the impression I’d missed some key detail that explained what was currently happening—it didn’t help. The truly weird part of it all is that the plot didn’t have to be this way: Despite being promoted as Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse, the film has little to nothing in common with the plot of the famed writer’s novel of the same name. Spy stories are often complex, and Clancy made a career of figuring out how to do complexity in a way that enthralled and entertained. This movie could have used more of his influence beyond just giving the protagonist the same name and a few of the same attributes as in the novel. 

The plot is bewildering, the dialogue is so-so, and the third-act twist feels incredibly unearned and lazy: In short—and to cut down on spoilers—the Russians who tried to kill Kelly were part of a conspiracy trying to provoke war between the United States and Russia. The whole plan relies on John not being in bed when the assassins came for him and then not being fatally shot when he engaged in gunfire so he can then go for revenge.

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  1. James Bennett

    I thought it was entertaining, but yeah, it had virtually nothing to do with the original novel, and was pretty generic, if well done. The original John Kelly was much more of a driven loner, seeking revenge, putting him as part of a covert ops team just makes him another cog in the wheel, and not as interesting.

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    Peter

    As I watched this I felt the same. There's no way this was based on a Tom Clancy novel; it's so 'meh.'
    Indeed Jordan was wasted; he was better as Killmonger or even the tragic Oscar Grant. Heaven help what Jar Jar Abrams will do to him in Superman.
    It's as if hollywood was saying, "See, we have a Black action hero!", and stopped there, which is emblematic of what they've done (Star Wars) and are doing (MCU).

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  3. CatoTheElder

    I think you’re much too kind, Alec. The movie is an atrocity. The dialogue is horrendously bad, characters are ill-defined cutouts—exemplifying the worst parts of both those phrases—the plot is laughably bad and assembled as if it were done by a lazy gang of eighth-graders, the cinematography is ho-hum, and the directing is the worst part of it all. Some half-decent acting jobs save the thing from utter ridiculousness, but this thing is—and this is my charitable take—a waste of the money spent to make it, and every time it’s viewed, an hour and forty minutes of a lifetime is wasted as well. I’ve enjoyed many of the Clancy books and movies (the earlier books and productions are invariably the best), but this makes me want to abandon everything associated with the Clancy franchise.

    TL;DR version: Awful movie. A crime against humanity. No excuses for movie-making professionals to produce such dreck. In short: really, really bad.

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    Jason Gibson

    Im noticing the dramatic trends talked about in this article to be becoming disturbingly common

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    Nick H

    Tom Clancy wrote a couple of fantastic books ("The Hunt for Red October", "Red Storm Rising"). Then he wrote three really good books ("Patriot Games", "The Cardinal of the Kremlin", "Clear and Present Danger"). The next book, "The Sum of all Fears", would have been really good too, but he had to ruin it by blowing up a Denver Broncos game. So that, along with the next three ("Without Remorse", "Debt of Honor", "Executive Orders"), are just good. The downhill trend continues with "Rainbow Six" and "The Bear and the Dragon", which are okay. After this he starts putting his name on novels that someone else writes, and the first few are just awful. I can't speak to the rest because that's the point I stopped reading. There are a couple of other solo efforts, but the reviews of those were so bad I didn't bother trying. I can't think of any other author who's career is quite like this, starting out so high and declining in an ever steepening curve to pure garbage. I'm not in the least bit shocked to find that the cinematic adaptations of Clancy's work have followed the same trajectory.

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  6. PJI

    Odd trivia - Rob(ert) Ritter played by Henry Czerny was the villainous bureaucratic rival in the CIA to Harrison Ford in "Clear and Present Danger". He must have discovered the fountain of youth and recovered his moral compass.

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  7. Kaybmorrow

    Saw last night, very disappointed. This series always starts pretty good then goes down hill.

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    Earl King

    Clancy was a transformative writer for me. John Clark’s transformation in to a vigilante and ultimately into a real spook were terrific. I believe the protagonists in the original were drug dealers. I hate adaptations that are re-imagined in to a writers mind or simply ripped off art to go into another tangent. Disappointment would be my reaction to this review.

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    Paul Montagu

    I liked the movie, but it didn't make sense that the hitmen targeted the other Seals specifically but, on the Kelly hit, they just shot into the bed without knowing exactly who was in it.
    The Secretary's motivations for the conspiracy were not well thought out, considering the guy made it to the highest levels of government.

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    Alex Mudd

    It's been a while since I read the book but I seem to remember John Kelly going to war with drug dealers, not Russians. Tom Clancy adaptations always diverge a lot from the source material but this movie felt like all they used from the novel was the single rampage-inducing plot point, which isn't all that different from any other revenge-fueled vigilante movie, and a couple of character names. A Michael B. Jordan v. drug ring period piece probably wouldn't have been a genre-defining masterpiece of cinema but it could've been more fun and a lot less preachy.

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