Without Remorse

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Writer, Tom Clancy, is a bit of a legend in his own right. I'm probably wrong about this, but he's the only author I can think of who happens to be a triple threat who offers an array of movies, TV series and video game adaptations of his work. But I admit, I have a tendency to avoid his work. This has nothing to do with quality, but everything to do with me having a tough time following things. I tend to associate a lot of his material with "political thrillers" ('Clear and Present Danger', 'The Sum of All Fears'), and those tend not to be for me and my attention span. As far as the games, I really just haven't dabbled yet.

Anyway, I've always been the odd man out on Clancy. I don't criticise the man in the slightest though; if I can't follow what he puts out there, that probably only means he's being a little more realistic than most. One thing I have absolutely no trouble following, however, is a good, basic revenge film - and that's largely what 'Without Remorse' ends up being. If I was to give this some sort of a comparison, think of it as a cross between 'The Punisher' and, quite honestly, a good military first person shooter. This is another movie that makes for a really good video game movie without it actually being based on a video game - although there is an interesting moment at the end I won't spoil.

The film opens in Aleppo, where a team of US Navy SEALs are on a mission to rescue a CIA operative who has been taken hostage. The team, which includes Senior Chief, John Kelly (Michael B. Jordan), discovers the captors are Russian military and not the pro-Assad group they thought. We get that there's already something personal between this team and the Russians. Three months later, the Russians retaliate by offing the team members one by one, however, Kelly survives only to suffer significant losses in the process that go beyond his fallen team.

Meanwhile, Kelly's team leader, Lt. Commander Karen Greer (Jodie Turner-Smith) reviews response options for the attack on the team with CIA officer, Robert Ritter (Jamie Bell) and Secretary of Defense, Thomas Clay (Guy Pearce). The CIA refuses to conduct an investigation, however, as American and Russian relations are currently risking a new Cold War. Greer to passes confidential information to Kelly, however, and long story short, Kelly ends up taking things into his own hands. What follows, at least in my eyes, ends up being a solid revenge film, and I ended up liking it a lot more than I've liked other Clancy material.

That said, however, this might not be the best Tom Clancy flick for Tom Clancy fans. A lot of reviews suggest (and I'd have to agree) there's a bit less brains going on here as opposed to brawn. Being that Clancy flicks tend to have a real intellect about them fans have adapted to, I could see this not being the best adaptation of his work. It works for someone who likes a good action flick, like yours truly, but there's not a whole lot here that makes you stop and think about things like a lot of other Clancy material. I can't help but feel that this was made for some non-fans in order to provide a bigger reach, and pull in people like myself. So if you're a big time Clancy fan, you probably won't get as much out of this than I did.

So once again, I would probably consider myself the odd man out on this movie. The bottom line for me is that I had fun with it, and found it much more exciting than I had anticipated. But I can't honestly recommend it very highly to typical Clancy fans, as it does admittedly seem to stray a bit from his typical. It's true to say this is less of a thinker than a lot of his other work, but it still makes for a solid revenge flick in my eyes, if that's something you've been craving a bit more of after checking out movies like 'Nobody' earlier this month. Let's just hope we don't get oversaturated with these this year...

4/5

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