“Tom Clancy’s” Without Remorse, on Priime Video

How would you feel about a new film adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale that made the fundamentalist Sons of Jacob the heroes? Would it be okay if it maintained the same title and character names? At least John Kelly is still the hero of Amazon’s new Tom Clancy film. However, the implications of his story are now very different from what the author intended. According to IMDb, it is officially called “Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse,” but he might not have agreed when it premieres today on Prime Video.

Senior Chief John Kelly of the US Navy SEALs is a badass, who is planning his exit strategy from the military, so he can be at home for his pregnant wife and soon-to-be born daughter. Tragically, they are both assassinated, in retaliation for an operation targeting a clandestine Russian operation in Syria. Rather ill-advisedly, they leave the critically wounded Kelly still breathing.

Naturally, when he recovers, he strikes back against the Russians hard. He soon lands himself in prison, but his old colleague, Lieutenant Commander Karen Greer (daughter of Admiral Greer, a.k.a. James Earl Jones in the Hunt for Red October movie) pulls strings to spring him, in exchange for the intel he uncovered. Despite her better judgement, he inevitably leads the double-secret covert op into Russia.

So far, so good, Ryanverse fans might think, even though the Vietnam War and Baltimore drug gangs from the book are conspicuously missing. Yet, they are likely to be disappointed by the big reveal. Clancy’s books always respected the service and sacrifice of America’s military and intelligence services. He clearly suggested America was a force for good in the world and our enemies were a danger to all. In contrast, Taylor Sheridan and Will Staples’ screenplay is very le Carré-esque, positing a moral equivalency between America and Russia, while positioning a hawkish neo-Cold Warrior as the supposedly-secret-but-conspicuously-obvious villain.

One wonders why Sheridan, Staples, and director Stefano Sollima bothered adapting Clancy’s novel when they clearly had no affinity for its story. Even if producing a 1960s period thriller would be too expensive for a cash-strapped start-up like Amazon, they could have credibly transposed the story to the Iraq War, while retaining Kelly’s one-man war against the street thugs that killed his wife.

The Real Hunt for Red October, on Reelz

Tom Clancy wasn't just a #1 bestseller. He changed publishing, making the “technothriller” a legitimate thing and encouraging scores of military veterans to try their hand at fiction. Some of them were pretty good at it too. Maybe he also helped win the Cold War as well. Some commentators suggest as much in The Real Hunt for Red October, which premieres tomorrow night on Reelz.

Everyone thinks they are a writer, yet a lot of the talking heads in Reelz’s “true story” special think it was odd that an insurance salesman from Maryland could sit down a write a publishable first novel. Yet, Anthony Trollope and Wallace Stevens had written extensive bodies of literature, while also maintaining full-time office jobs. Seriously, it was not so outlandish. The question is whether Clancy was fed classified information by intelligence agencies for the sake of scoring a soft power victory. (Clancy himself always claimed he got his information from specialized media, like Jane’s Defense, but why settle for a conventional explanation, when you opt for something more dramatic.)

Much of the Real Hunt focuses on the circumstances surrounding the sinking of the Soviet submarine K-129 and the clandestine CIA campaign to salvage it, echoes of which can be found in Red October. This is also the best stuff in the nonfiction program. It was a huge undertaking, masked by a fictional seafloor mining enterprise headed by Howard Hughes, whose legendary eccentricity was an asset to the operation. We even see a promotional video for the enterprise hosted by TV character actor Richard Anderson (from The Six Million Dollar Man and appropriately, Cover-Up). For years, the salvage operation was considered mostly a failure, but several interview subjects suggest it was more successful than the CIA let on.

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, on Prime Video

In the books, Tom Clancy’s signature hero served as National Security Advisor, Vice President, and President for two non-consecutive terms. Maybe he will do so again, but for the present time, he has been rebooted back to his original government gig: CIA analyst (not including his prior military service). Of course, he always had an unlikely knack for getting out from behind his desk and into the field. Regardless of his job, he always has the same mission—to protect America from its foreign enemies. The titular character will do his duty in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (trailer here), which premieres this Friday on Prime Video.

Ryan has the Yemen desk at the CIA. It is not so hot in terms of prestige, but there is plenty of suspicious activity to track. Ryan has uncovered a pattern of sophisticated money transfers that seem to suggest a rumored new jihadist player is planning something big and horrific. Unfortunately, his new section chief James Greer is in full CYA mode after being cashiered back to Langley due a career-derailing kerfuffle in Pakistan. Needless to say, Greer is not pleased when Ryan does an end-run around him with the Treasury liaison, but it gets the ball rolling.

Soon, Ryan and Greer are jet-setting to France and Turkey in pursuit of the elusive “Sulieman.” When he has a spare moment, Ryan does his best to romance Dr. Cathy Mueller, whose infectious disease specialty might just come in handy later. They might just have a future together, whereas Sulieman’s terrified wife Hanin is desperate to escape with her children. There is also a bit of business with a remorseful drone operator that so far represents a momentum-killer for the series, based on the six episodes provided to the media. Clancy would have just told him to cowboy up, as does his infinitely more telegenic partner.

Showrunner-executive producers Carlton Cruse & Graham Roland deserve credit for some realistic and unvarnished depictions of terrorism on-screen. There is one particular attack in Paris that shows very little graphic carnage, but still manages to be absolutely shocking. Of course, they bend over backwards to provide counter-balancing Muslim characters, which even include the hard-charging Greer. It is more convincing in the case of Hanin, who is indeed a character who reflects reality for some many women in the Islamist world.

Frankly, U.S.-based Saudi actress Dina Shihabi deserves even more credit for her portrayal of Hanin, which is quite brave for multiple reasons. She is all kinds of fierce and vulnerable, so she should be the heroic feminist TV figure of the year. John Krasinski is actually quite a strong Jack Ryan (immeasurably superior to Affleck and Pine). Proving 13 Hours was not a fluke, he projects the right balance of everyman integrity and the rough-and-ready bearing of a combat veteran.

Wendell Pierce brings plenty of hardnosed attitude as Greer, while a surprisingly old-looking Tim Hutton shows a weaselly side we haven’t seen before as CIA bureaucrat Nathan Singer. In six episodes, Abbie Cornish does not get much to do besides eat Maryland crabs and send a couple fateful Ebola emails. Perhaps the weak link is Ali Suliman’s Sulieman, who is just sort of blandly sinister, like a garden variety terrorist from 24. (The attempts to blame his radicalization on French bigotry might be counter-productive, in this respect.)

Still, Cuse and Roland keep the stakes high, while Krasinski and Shihabi maintain viewers’ rooting interest. The characterization is mostly quite strong (in fact, the death of one unmentioned recurring character really stings) and the action scenes are energetically staged. Clancy probably would have wanted to tinker with it a little, but it will still exceed his fans’ expectations. Recommended pretty enthusiastically (again based on six episodes, a pretty fair sampling), Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan premieres on Amazon Prime this Friday (8/31).