The Big Picture
- Tom Clancy's John Clark, unlike the straight-laced Jack Ryan, is a fearsome and dark assassin with combat training.
- John Clark was first introduced as a supporting character in Clancy's novels and was portrayed by Willem Dafoe in the film adaptations.
- Michael B. Jordan brings a serious and stone-faced performance to the character of John Clark in the film Without Remorse .
Similar to characters like Jason Bourne and James Bond, Tom Clancy’s CIA agent Jack Ryan has become one of the most beloved fiction heroes of the last few decades in both literature and popular culture. While there is always going to be a lot of anticipation surrounding the next Bond, as the search for Daniel Craig’s replacement is underway, the conversation surrounding who will play Ryan next seems fairly muted given the excellent job John Krasinski did on the Amazon Prime original series Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. However, Ryan is just one part of a larger “Ryanverse” of characters that Clancy created, and many other heroes he’s inspired have made their way to the big screen. There’s one botched Jack Ryan spinoff written by Yellowstone’s Taylor Sheridan that everyone seems to forget about. Without Remorse is one of the most ruthless action thrillers in recent years, but you may not know that the "hard R" bloodfest shares a literary history with both Clancy and his famous characters.
Without Remorse
ActionThrillerWarAn elite Navy SEAL goes on a path to avenge his wife's murder only to find himself inside of a larger conspiracy.
Release Date April 29, 2021 Director Stefano Sollima Cast Michael B. Jordan , Jodie Turner-Smith , Jamie Bell , Guy Pearce , Lauren London , Jacob Scipio Runtime 109 Main Genre Action Writers Taylor Sheridan , Will Staples , Tom Clancy Tagline Revenge. Blood. Terrorists ExpandHow Does John Clark Compare to Jack Ryan?
While there have been five films centered on the Jack Ryan character, they represent only a fraction of the many espionage and adventure novels that Clancy wrote during his lifetime. Clancy was writing during the peak of the Cold War and the rise of conflicts in the Middle East, and had no shortage of recent events to cite for inspiration. These changing times called for many types of heroes, and not all of them were as straight-laced and compassionate as Ryan. If Ryan represented a sort of “extraordinary everyman” who uses his wits and intelligence to solve problems, then John Clark felt closer in line with fearsome 1980s action heroes, similar to the ones that Sylvester Stallone was playing at the time.
RelatedHow the ‘Without Remorse’ Credits Scene Teases a Big Tom Clancy Adaptation That Fans Have Been Waiting For
It’s almost surprising this movie hasn’t happened yet.
Clark represents a “dark side” to Ryan who does more active field work than the geeky CIA analyst has ever done in any iteration of Jack Ryan. Both men are patriots, although they’ve both been known to question their nation’s authority. However, Ryan is strictly an analyst who has never been trained for field work, while Clark is a former Navy SEAL with advanced combat training. Jack has had to kill amid combat, but it’s not his preference or expertise by any stretch of the imagination. On the other hand, Clark is strictly an assassin who is willing to do the “dirty work” that tends to be done behind cold doors. As a result, Ryan’s adventures have inspired more film adaptations, while Clark’s story has served as the inspiration for video games such as Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six.
John Clark Was First Introduced as a Supporting Character
Although Clark first appeared in Clancy’s 1988 political thriller The Cardinal of the Kremlin, he was later featured in the Ryan novel Clear and Present Danger. Ryan soon became a hero on the big screen after Clancy’s novel The Hunt For Red October was adapted into the excellent feature film of the same name by director John McTiernan in 1990, but it wasn’t until 1992 that Harrison Ford took over playing the character in Patriot Games. Compared to Alec Baldwin, Ford felt like a more natural action hero who could deal with more of the politically fragile situations that Clark tended to be featured in. As a result, Clark was introduced as a supporting character in the 1994 feature film adaptation of Clear and Present Danger, where he was portrayed by Willem Dafoe.
The relationship between Ford’s Ryan and Dafoe’s Clark is an initially frictional one. Neither man has reason to trust the other, as Ryan suspects Clark of being a traitorous rogue agent, and Clark suspects Ryan to be nothing more than another empty suit following orders. It’s not until the twist of the film that they realize they’ve been at the same time the whole time, and that a conspiracy at the top of the federal government is responsible for the chaotic situation in Columbia. While Dafoe sadly did not get the chance to play the character again, it remains one of his most underrated performances.
What Does Michael B. Jordan Bring to 'Without Remorse'?
The Jack Ryan film franchise faced some uncertainty after the Chris Pine vehicle Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit hit theaters in early 2014 and subsequently underperformed with both audiences and critics. There were initially plans to create a connected Jack Ryan universe featuring Kevin Costner as the CIA liaison who brought the two characters together, with Tom Hardy set to play Clark in a film. After several years of being in development hell, script overhauls by Mission: Impossible’s Christopher McQuarrie and The Shield’s Shawn Ryan, the project was temporarily scrapped after Hardy began to move on to other projects.
However, the adaptation of the Clark origin story of Without Remorse eventually found new life when the Sicario: Day of the Soldado duo Stefana Sollima and Taylor Sheridan agreed to move forward with a new adaptation for Paramount Pictures starring Michael B. Jordan as Tom Clancy's John Clark. Compared to the “Ryanverse” films, which tended to focus on Jack’s moral crisis amidst intense socio-political situations, Without Remorse was pitched as a dark revenge movie that showed Clark’s training as an assassin after his pregnant wife Pam (Lauren London) is killed by Russian assassins during a botched attempt on Clark’s life.
Despite the typical charisma that Jordan tends to bring to his roles, he’s about as stone-faced and serious as he can get in Without Remorse. Clark is on a revenge mission that isn't sanctioned by his government but ends up discovering a conspiracy that links back to the Secretary (Guy Pearce). While the Jack Ryan franchise was clearly inspired by the espionage genre, Without Remorse was closer in tone to a political thriller with its strong anti-authoritarian themes.
What Is John Clark's Future?
CloseWhile Without Remorse was developed independently of Prime Video’s ongoing Jack Ryan series and its potential spin-offs, the two projects ended up being united under the same parent company due to complications with the theatrical release of the film. Due to concerns about the future of the box office in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Paramount opted to sell Without Remorse to Amazon Studios to release the film directly to the streaming service. Clark and Ryan now shared the same home, even if the two characters weren’t intended to be part of the same universe.
Without Remorse is certainly a flawed adaptation, but it’s also certainly not a ripoff of the Jack Ryan films considering how drastically different the two characters are. The saga of Jordan's Clark has a promising future ahead of it, as John Wick director Chad Stahelski is set to direct the sequel, Rainbow Six. The next film in the series will team Clark up with a covert anti-terrorist squad that performs a secret mission. With the end of John Krasinski's Prime Video series, now is the perfect time to revisit a strange spin-off that's taken on a life of its own.
Without Remorse is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S.
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