Film Review - Jack Ryan: Ghost War

Don’t get me wrong, I would be thrilled if the marketing team for Jack Ryan: Ghost War contacted me to promote the film. It would be a huge step forward for my Watching Working Living website as I tiptoe towards being a professional writer.

Although it would be difficult to hide my disappointment when talking to the cast especially John Krasinski the eponymous star and co-writer of this action thriller. It is not bad. It is not good. It is work. Actors showing up to earn, doing their utmost to inject suspense, tension and a spy called Nigel into a belated hangover of a War on Terror movie for two-screen streamers.

Film critics have described it as a “dad action film” you might watch when half asleep on the sofa or on the plane eating lunch.

Jack Ryan is reluctantly pulled back into espionage when an international covert mission unravels a deadly conspiracy that you never fully understand. Jack is an analyst in the same way that Steven Seagal was just a cook in Under Siege, defying the middle-aged decline to convince dads across the land they can still kick arse if they can get off the sofa.

What’s the story?

There are bullets, a memory card, a race to download the details of an international network of killers and traitors from a Dubai data centre before the bad guys kill the good guys. However, there are no good guys when you operate in the shadows. ‘Walking away from the darkness isn't the same thing as walking into the light,’ the Deputy Director James Greer tells him. That line might look good on paper but even a quality actor like Wendell Pierce cannot make it sound good. He should have demanded a cameo appearance of Senator Clay Davis from The Wire for a ‘sheeeeeeit’ to use comedy to hide it.

The Ghost War script would not have seen the light of day in The Wire. If I submitted a script with that darkness line, I would be dismissed as an amateur, which I am. But if you are a star you can do what you want, believing your dialogue is incredibly deep with immense subtext, ignoring any feedback to the contrary. I know film dialogue is not the same as real life talking. However, what would your response be if someone said that at work?

Anyway, back when the War on Terror was raging, Max Beasley’s Liam Crown was a special ops soldier who teamed up with Greer to do some bad shit for good reasons against bad people to protect the world. Twenty years later, Beasley is back as a rogue mercenary listening to his mate Robbie Williams in his earpiece, reactivating terrorist groups from the millennium to make Western spy agencies realise the only way to make a difference is to do the things no one else will.

All filler, Jack’s a killer

I like Max Beasley as an actor as I always believe in the characters he is portraying. Although I would have preferred to have seen him play this role in a thrilling episode of The Bill back in 2005. Ghost War might have car chases through central London and Manhattan and gun fights in Dubai, but it does not draw you in like a good episode of The Bill.

Beasley’s Crown is ruthless and clever enough to blow up the CIA Director and her convoy of armed guards. However, when him and his crack troops face Jack Ryan, Sienna Miller’s chain smoking spook and Michael Kelly’s comedy sidekick, they get their firing angles wrong and lose their killer instinct. However, not even a helicopter with a chain gun can kill him.

I wanted to hear The Killers’ lyric ‘I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier’ as Jack executes Crown even saying ‘no hesitation’ to show he will not hesitate to be a lethal shadow in the darkness. Instead there is Greer’s voiceover about the CIA’s job to give America pride, to uphold the ideal of who we are and who we wish to be, at any cost. But if that ideal is based on lies, then our institutions begin to crumble, making us susceptible to division.

I am unsure if this is a pro-MAGA or anti-MAGA monologue and what this means for the next Jack Ryan film. Will Jack become so lost in the darkness he starts to believe he is Batman? But Batman doesn’t kill people. How can the film be exciting without gun fights? Will Sienna Miller cut her losses and ask for a spinoff show for her smoking British agent to save British institutions?

Conclusion

I liked the Jack Ryan TV series and will always love Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger which are far superior to Ghost War. As this film felt like actors doing a job you have to wonder what the problem statement was and why a SWOT analysis did not solve it. Was this a collective failure or individual failure? The script has too many holes and the narrative structure makes you wonder if you fell asleep and missed something.

Despite this being a spy thriller there are no bad actors. I would say there are too many successful people with too much autonomy and self-belief in what makes a good film. Maybe look at some ITV dramas for inspiration.

Inspiration

What we talk about when we are working and living

© 2025. All rights reserved.