An underwhelming thriller that never quite hits a home run, despite a solid John Krasinski doing his best, observes Mayur Sanap.
Key Points
- For a film that deals with geopolitical tensions and modern warfare, some parts of it do not come across as purely fiction.
- The first 20 minutes of the thriller resembles the world right now. Looming dangers that could potentially destabilise the world.
- Governments suspecting each other of attack. Proxy wars threatening to escalate.
Jack Ryan Returns With Another Deadly Mission
Watching Jack Ryan: Ghost War in 2026 feels oddly far more uncomfortable than it is supposed to be. For a film that deals with geopolitical tensions and modern warfare, some parts of it do not come across as purely fiction.
The first 20 minutes of this spy thriller resembles the world right now. Looming dangers that could potentially destabilise the world. Governments suspecting each other of attack. Proxy wars threatening to escalate. Amid all that, a handful of authoritative men calmly explain how close things are to spiralling out of control.
Ghost War leans heavily into that atmosphere. Sometimes effectively. Sometimes almost accidentally.
Three years ago when the Jack Ryan series on Prime Video wrapped up, it appeared like our eponymous hero, who is a CIA analyst and operative, is finally free from the burden of his responsibilities.
But film franchises do not let people retire, do they? So John Krasinski’s hardened hero gets pulled in into yet another deadly mission.
The thing about Jack Ryan as a character is that he is not some swagger-exuding, super-cool spy like James Bond nor does he pull off heavy-duty, death-defying action stunts like Ethan Hunt.
What makes Jack Ryan interesting is that he does not act like an invincible action hero. He looks really tired. Not just a bit tired. Really tired. Like a man who has been through a lot, both physically and emotionally.
John Krasinski, who also serves as the film’s writer alongside Aaron Rabin, knows that Jack Ryan works best when he is not a crusader. He is a man who is trying to convince himself that what he does is still right.
This conundrum makes Ghost War sometimes feel deeper.
There are parts that are like Gerard Butler’s Machine Gun Preacher. It is about a man who is stuck between violence and doing what is right. He cannot separate intentions from the bad things that happen.
At one point, a character even snaps at him, ‘You and your goddamn moral compass.’
Sadly, Ghost War does not go deep enough into any of it. Every time the film approaches genuine character insight, somebody crashes in and starts firing automatic weapons. It gets frustrating after a while because the film just keeps moving through motions.
What’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War About?
The film picks up almost immediately.
A surveillance operation in Dubai goes terribly wrong. Two operatives die, and Ryan is suddenly positioned as the prime suspect in a double homicide. An MI6 agent Emma Marlow (an understated Sienna Miller) is on hot pursuit of Ryan.
From there, the film travels to London, New York, and back to Dubai at a relentless pace. Jack is forced to face a mysterious Liam Crown (Max Beesley), a growling villain in the same mould as Gabriel from Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning, expect he is a decorated military veteran who turns to terrorism.
Amid the growing tension, a revived covert operation named ‘Starling’ threatens to ignite worldwide conflict and it is up to Jack and his elite team to stop the escalation.
The best parts of Jack Ryan: Ghost War are when it slows down and allows moments to breathe in. There are scenes where people talk quietly and governments are secretly panicking. People get really paranoid and it is because of the looming sense of danger that something bad could happen at any moment. But the film refuses to revel in any kind of silence for longer.
The background music is always on high pitch, underscoring every tense moment. It is like the film is afraid that viewers will get bored without it.
And then there’s the dialogue. Some of it lands naturally, especially between Krasinski, Wendell Pierce and Michael Kelly. Their chemistry remains the franchise’s secret weapon. They talk like people who have spent years surviving impossible situations together. Those scenes feel authentic.
But then the screenplay suddenly throws dramatic lines at you with vague philosophical meaning: ‘Walking away from the darkness isn’t the same thing as walking into the light.’
C’mon, nobody talks like that in real life.
Sienna Miller is A Welcome Addition
John Krasinski keeps the film watchable as the titular hero. Instead of brooding masculinity, he opts for a quiet intensity that makes Jack Ryan’s personality traits feel convincing.
Sienna Miller is a welcome addition. Her MI6 agent Emma brings unpredictability to the story, which helps elevate her scenes. It’s also nice to see her character isn’t reduced to a pretty face or a generic love interest.
The production design is sleek but not too fancy. The action choreography is sharp, especially the multi-stage sequences across Dubai and London. Car chases feel real. Hand-to-hand combat appear painful. And bullets look lethal. But good craftsmanship cannot hide how everything else feels familiar.
One important character death should have landed hard. Instead, it simply… happens. Characters mourn, but the film moves on too quickly for grief to register.
That’s where Ghost War struggles most compared to the series. The episodic nature of the series gave the fast-paced story time to breathe. Here, the film simply compresses everything into non-stop momentum before turning into a familiar action rut that feels too long, even under two hours.
The result is an underwhelming thriller that never quite hits a home run, despite a solid John Krasinski doing his best. A pity.
Jack Ryan: Ghost War streams on Amazon Prime Video.
