Tom Clancy's Without Remorse (2021)

It would be interesting to have been a fly on the wall in the meeting where the decision was made to put "Tom Clancy's" at the front of the films title. It wasn't to sell more cinema tickets, as one would once have expected, because (Tom Clancy's) Without Remorse is an Amazon Prime release, sent directly to the streaming platform two years ago. Even if it was, the young generation would, presumably, know the name Tom Clancy from the series of video games fronted by his name, not for his literary back catalogue. But then again, it's a 15 certificate, so that prevents a huge number of gamers from watching it in the first place, and as we all know, parents strictly stick to the law when it comes to age restrictions on games and films. All this confusion and nonsense however, nicely falls in line with Tom Clancy's Without Remorse. Michael B. Jordan is a Navy Seal who sets out on a path of vengeance after his pregnant wife is brutally murdered at the beginning of the film. But as his vendetta gains momentum, he uncovers a plot of double crossing and triple crossing that threatens to engulf the United States and Russia in an all out war. It passes a couple of hours without really drawing you in, there are a lot of fight sequences in various dark and dreary settings. A sequence involving a plane crash on water is particularly well filmed though, and that combined with an impressive shoot out in a building is genuinely tense. I enjoyed it more than The Sum Of All Fears (2002) which was a real bore, and possibly even The Hunt For Red October (1990), which is a controversial statement both for being a well loved film, and being somewhat paradoxical to last weeks reviews, when I mentioned I was a sucker for submarine thrillers. I point out these films since they are previous Tom Clancy adaptations, albeit with a different character. If you like your Tom Clancy adaptations, I suggest Patriot Games (1992) and subsequently Clear And Present Danger (1994). How many times have I used the name Tom Clancy in this review? 5.5/10