Without Remorse (2021).
“A big country needs big enemies.”
Directed by Stefano Sollima
Written by Taylor Sheridan and Will Staples
Starring Michael B. Jordan, Jodie Turner-Smith, Jamie Bell, Guy Pearce, and lots of confusion
Spoilers incoming for Without Remorse. You’ve been warned.
The Stage.
Take a good look, because looking at Michael B. Jordan is the best thing about this film.
Ex-Navy S.E.A.L. John Kelly finds himself incapacitated after an attack on his home that leaves his wife and unborn baby dead. The attack is connected to a previous mission that he and his squad took part in…or is it? Of course nothing is as it seems, because Tom Clancy’s name is slapped on the front of the title.
The Review.
John Kelly and his wife, Exposition Lady.
I’m always excited to see Michael B. Jordan in something because he’s awesome, and this was no different. He’s the best part of the film, getting to flex his acting muscles and his real muscles, and goddamn they’re glorious. Unfortunately, the action isn’t memorable, the script is messy as hell, and the movie just isn’t as clever as it thinks it is.
The action in the first half of the movie is fine. I’m a sucker for military raids and there’s a cool plane crash sequence, but once the team gets to Russia, the big action set piece in an apartment building is just confusing. The grand plan is to get these guys into this apartment building so that they can die, leaving dead US soldiers on Russian soil to look like retaliation for the dead Russian soldiers on US soil. Okay, cool. The CIA, of course double crossing their own people, has three snipers in other buildings and a guy with C4 strapped onto his chest. Why did you need the guy with the bomb? Why not just have the snipers take out a few Navy S.E.A.L.s? And speaking of those snipers, why did the CIA send the three worst snipers to this job? Seriously, these guys couldn’t hit water aiming from the deck of a floating boat. Collectively they probably take 40 shots and deal one hit to a stomach and one to a leg. The ensuing raid by the Russian S.W.A.T. team or military or whatever they are is a big old disaster too. There’s no reasonable way John Kelly should have left that building and the way he got out wasn’t at all interesting.
Oh, and the scene in which John Kelly ambushes a Russian diplomat, lights the car on fire with gasoline, and then gets into the car to get information, only to pop out and be arrested? Seriously? What if the Russian hadn’t said anything? What kind of plan was that?
Light a car on fire and sit in it while it burns around you until you jump out and get caught. Yep, that’s the plan.
The movie thinks it’s just the bees knees with the twists and turns, but it’s not. It positions one of the C.I.A. leads as a questionable presence on the team, expecting the audience to say, “Yep, he must be in on it!” but if you’ve seen any spy movie in the past 100 years, you know that it’s immediately a misdirection. This sleight of hand is even more tipped when you cast Guy fucking Pearce in a role that makes him appear trustworthy. It’s Guy Pearce, OF COURSE HE’S THE BAD GUY.
The last sequence is unbelievably stupid. Kelly has survived and he’s taking Pearce hostage, they’re driving towards his family’s ranch, so Pearce gives up the goods. What’s Kelly’s endgame? It’s to record Pearce confessing to the stuff so that he can be free again and then to kill Pearce to make it look like a suicide, aided by his commanding officer in the S.E.A.L.s. Instead of just driving him to a wooded area and shooting him in the head to make it look like a self-inflicted wound, Kelly drives the SUV off of a bridge, splashing the car into the Potomac. The car sinks, and both men are presumed drowned until it’s revealed that the commanding officer was just waiting down there in a diving outfit. I guess she then switches him into the driver’s seat, and the media assumes that an SUV just crossed through traffic and launched through a guardrail to the water below is somehow a suicide? Then they go attend John’s fake funeral? The latter half of this movie was straight up garbage.
The End.
At least she wasn’t a helpless female. I guess that’s another plus.
The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger. The 90’s had some good Tom Clancy movies. What happened? This feels less like a tentpole film for Michael B. Jordan as Clancy’s other non-Jack Ryan character and more like a vehicle that Scott Adkins should have been leading. The script is undeniably stupid and with action that isn’t very memorable, it’s really hard to recommend this film.
