240. Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan: Ghost War (2026)

[00:00:00] This show is nominated for a 2026 Golden Lobes Podcast Award. Get in!

[00:00:06] Welcome to SpyHards Podcast, I'm Agent Scott.

[00:00:48] And I'm Cam the Provocateur, killing the monsters so you don't have to. Thanks for doing that by the way. I know Bustin makes you feel good. I'm coming after you Frankenstein. Well, you get on with that. I will, I will. Yeah, that's a weird thing for you to do with your spare time Cam. But we don't judge here on SpyHards Podcast, although we do judge your comments when it comes to the films that we talk about. Because every week we like to see what you think of the films we spoke about, keeping up with our tradition this year.

[00:01:16] And the last film we tackled was Alfred Hitchcock's Topaz. Yeah, a very polarizing movie. We've got a few different comments running the gamut of opinions on Topaz. Cam, why don't you start us off? Okay, well I'll start off with an email we got from CL Shaver. And I'll jump in, saying if you can email us at mail at spyhards.com, that way we get it. That's right. And the email says,

[00:01:46] Love, love, love it when Calvin Dyson is the guest. Oh yeah. Can talk with equal intelligence on Bond and Hitchcock. He's the goat. I've seen every Hitchcock movie and Topaz was the last one I got to. It's definitely lesser Hitchcock, but as y'all said, it has several iconic sequences. I only remembered the Harlem set piece and Karen Doerr's death before the discussion, but the opening sequence was also well done. Alfred Hitchcock movies on my disavowed list.

[00:02:14] Oh, this is interesting. Okay, here we go. Downhill, Juno and the Paycock, and Jamaica Inn. Hope you covered Jamaica Inn. Maybe you'll change my mind, but I doubt it. From Chris the Doctor Shaver. Well, thank you, Chris. Thank you, Doctor. Mm-hmm, yes. If you have that, we should call you by that, so well done. Yes, and I'll note that I have not seen Downhill or Juno and the Paycock, so I can't comment whether I agree or not.

[00:02:43] I actually have a box set of the very early Hitchcock movies, so I will get to them eventually. But for me, number 17, which Calvin and I both alluded to as being what we thought was pretty dire, that's definitely on my disavowed list. I do love a spicy take, and here is another one. This comes from Elifoubert on Twitter, and they say, Be reasonable. It's the greatest 60s spy movie. Casting, music, photography, storyline.

[00:03:11] It's the holy grail of NATO KGB penetration. Wow, okay. It's a very specific term there. Very much is. I mean, like, Ellie, you're coming at it, and you like it. So you clearly vibe with the topaz vibe. It clearly shined in your face, and you were blinded by the light. I mean, favorite 60s spy film, or the best 60s spy film. Wow. That's, I mean, that's a lot of really strong competition.

[00:03:39] Obviously, you've got Goldfinger, and you've got the Ipcris file. So I'm leaning on the fact that they're pulling our leg, but we'll just take you at your word. Yeah, that's more fun, right? Yeah. I mean, we're idiots. So yeah, we'll pretend that you meant what you just said. But Cam, what do you have next? Well, next up, I have Michael Foley from Facebook, who says of Topaz, It doesn't feel like Hitchcock, which may be the sign of a masterful director, which, of course, you know, Hitchcock movies are very distinct. You can feel his style all over them,

[00:04:08] and the fact that Michael doesn't feel that Topaz really has those reverberations of Hitchcockian style. I mean, that's pretty damning. Yeah. I'm not entirely sure that is intentional on Hitchcock's part, and that probably is the biggest insult you could make about the film. I mean, the dress spreading out feels very Hitchcock, but the voyeurism... Those sandwiches, Cam. The sandwiches. The voyeurism and the suspense elements, I'll say, feel like Hitchcock,

[00:04:37] but when you look at the movie and measure it against others of his, you know, oeuvre, it does feel weird. Ah. It does feel anachronistic to what I've seen from Hitchcock before. I've seen less than Ewan Calvin, but definitely does not feel like what I'm used to with him, and I've seen him in some of his earliest films. This next one, I think, speaks to the duality of Topaz, fandom, and hatred. It comes from Mark Winneker over on Twitter, and they say,

[00:05:05] I think it's both underrated and one of Hitchcock's weaker efforts, but his bar was so high. Probably not not list worthy, but I still enjoy watching. I mean, it's very true. It's like when you have a filmography like Hitchcock does, it's hard to measure up to, you know, Psycho and North by Northwest and Vertigo and Notorious. Yes. But at the very least, I would say that Topaz,

[00:05:34] while not the most engaging, is at least interesting to talk about. Yeah. It gave us plenty to discuss. It did. Yeah. Yeah. An episode a lot of people enjoyed. The YouTube comments were going crazy for it. Well, we usually do four, but I've got one more because I think it's an interesting take that I wanted to end us on, and this one comes from Lancaster19131 over on Twitter. And they say, In Japan, it's customary to say,

[00:06:04] If you truly love something, you should love every bit about it, including its flaws. But I can only evaluate bad works as bad. I love masterpieces from rear window to North by Northwest though. Yeah. That's fair. That's fair. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the old British adage, If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all. And I do feel like Hitchcock, you know, in his final days, probably didn't look at Topaz as one of his great works. Indeed.

[00:06:33] And speaking of having nothing nice to say, Cam, why don't we get to this week's film? The question goes to you, so what are we talking about this week? We're talking about 2026s, why this very year we're recording. Jack Ryan Ghost War. I left a pregnant pause there, because that would be most people's reaction to you saying that. You know, it's going to be interesting to talk about this one. We should say up front, folks,

[00:07:03] we have not watched the Jack Ryan TV series. What are you going to say? The film? We have not watched the film. We have not watched Ghost War. So this will all be like a seance. We are going to channel up. It's like jazz. We're just going to like flow through it. We are going to channel up the ghosts. We are going to summon the ghosts of this, you know, war that we hear happened. No, no, no. Allegedly. I mean, I think in the case for either one of us, we've never watched the Jack Ryan series.

[00:07:31] We were kind of on the fence about this one, but it was pretty clear from what the filmmakers were saying. They wanted this to be a standalone adventure that could perhaps spawn an ongoing series of John Krasinski, Jack Ryan films on Amazon. Okay. That's like an entry point. Strap in. There was the goal of making this accessible to everyone. And I do know my Jack Ryan. I haven't read the books, but I've seen every single Jack Ryan film. So, you know, I knew his wife's name was Kathy.

[00:08:00] So when they announced that, you know, him and Kathy were split, I was like, what? Ann Archer, come back. Like, you know, things like that. I was, I was hip to what this movie was doing. I, that line dropped in the film didn't mean anything to me particularly. And I wonder, like, if you took it from like a TV show, you knew perspective. Is that like a slap in the face? Like, there's probably like, there's three seasons where they're probably like, well, they won't they. Is it, is it Ross and Rachel? Jack and. Kathy. Whatever her name. Jack and Kathy.

[00:08:31] Little ditty about Jack and Kathy. Kathy. Uh, and then, but then they just pull them apart. Kathy was an ongoing character on the show. Um, I don't know if the actress didn't want to come back or if they just felt like this story didn't need her. But I mean, when I think of Jack Ryan stories and in terms of the films, him and Kathy are together for the two Harrison Ford films, I believe to the best of my memory, shadow recruit, let's be honest, folks, not the most memorable films,

[00:09:00] but I believe Cara Knightley played her. And that was kind of their origin of meeting. I think, um, I don't think she was in the Ben Affleck one. Um, but he had a girlfriend in that though, because he had to keep convincing her that he, she actually, he actually worked for the CIA. She didn't believe him. I think to the, again, this is a drawing to many days past, but I feel like that was a different girlfriend and that Kathy would be coming further down the road because he was playing like a younger Jack Ryan at that point. Sure. I do remember that,

[00:09:30] that wasn't it like Bridget Moynihan? Was the girlfriend in that movie? Uh, yeah, possibly. It's been a while. Yeah. But, uh, you know, we're going to boldly venture into this film. Uh, I actually went to a press screening of it. I saw it on the big screen. It is not having a theatrical release, but I did get to see it in like a little 50 person theater in Soho. So like, I kind of got a bit of a different experience to it. Um, it came out the week of recording on Amazon prime.

[00:09:58] I think it's coming out this episode in a couple of weeks post that, just because of things we've already got scheduled. But Cam, you've obviously watched it at home. I watch it at home, but because we don't have past experiences with this movie, because it just happened. Tell us a little bit about that experience of going to the premiere. Uh, well, I took a friend of the show, Chris Carr along, and I've done a lot of press, uh, screenings for spy movies over the years. And like, I just think about like, well, I'll dial it back.

[00:10:28] It was in a very nice hotel. They had like a downstairs theater room that I'm guessing is just sort of hired out for corporate events. It's not a very big room, not a very big screen. Uh, uh, it was packed with just people of like empire magazine were there and all other people that I knew. So it's sort of saying hi to them, obviously took friends of the show, Chris Carr along, but there was no. Razzmatazz. Yeah. But they gave me a little like bucket of popcorn in the water, but there was no like fancy tickets. There was no carpet.

[00:10:58] The film didn't even get a premiere here. Well, let's contrast that because you went to the premiere, for example, of, uh, or at least the critic screening for the gray man, the big Netflix spy film with Ryan Gosling a few years back. Like how did, how do those compare? I mean, it's not far off of that. Actually. I was going to use it to comparison point of the amateur, which came out last year. I mean, that was a major release. Uh, but again, a film people really didn't know what's happening all that much. And that got a big blue carpet release. There was a,

[00:11:28] you know, screenings all over London. We went to the one in Leicester square, um, a carpet with like, Rami Malek and all the crew were there. That felt like a premiere. This felt like a dirty little secret in a Soho hotel. To be fair, that was a theatrical release versus a streaming. Okay. What about the Star Trek section 31? When you went to, I guess last year. I mean, thank you for bringing that up. My therapist has been trying to work through that with me for the last year. So I had, I am triggered now. So if you could just not mention that again, it'd be great. But no,

[00:11:58] that was actually still, that was at the Curzon theater in, in, uh, Shaftesbury. I think it is, or most certainly in Soho. And they had a whole drinks thing afterwards. They had themed drinks, themed food. Like they spent a bit of money on it. There was like a section 31 wall. You can get your photos in front of, there was nothing like that for Ghost War. Interesting. Because I could see like them approaching Ghost War from the point of view of like, look, this is just playing to the Jack Ryan audience. How much work do we really have to do?

[00:12:28] How much money do we have to spend in terms of promoting it? That audience is built in. They're there. But you could say the same for Star Trek. So yeah, it kind of erases that argument. Yeah. And I would say out of the two franchises, Star Trek is maybe bigger in terms of lineage, but in terms of eyeballs, I think Jack Ryan probably has more people watching it than Star Trek does concurrently on television. Well, I can say that the Jack Ryan series was Amazon's top three.

[00:12:58] Like it was the third most watched series globally for them. So like, yeah, it's definitely a bigger deal than I think those Star Trek shows are for Paramount. Whereas like Star Trek always failed to break into the Nielsen streaming. Like maybe it would get to number 10. Yeah. With Strange New Worlds from time to time, but not that often. So yeah, it was, it was a very, a quiet affair. It was a ghostly affair. Hmm.

[00:13:27] And what did the sort of response in the room seem like? Uh, uh, oh, was it like ghosts? Yeah. It was like a cemetery camp. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. There wasn't like, I mean, there isn't exactly very many jokes in the film. There's some attempts at humor, but no one really laughed. Yeah. And so we're all just sort of there watching it like, okay. That doesn't surprise me. It is kind of one of those, um,

[00:13:55] the humor is there to make you go, hmm, as opposed to laugh out loud. But there was also like, this is clearly a press screening. Yeah. although I have found out since they have not done any other, they've done some other press screenings at the same place, but no big premiere. Like, it's not like I wasn't invited to the main party. It was just, there wasn't a party, but I, there were half the people in the room were taking notes. And I was looking at them during the screening going, what is it you're writing down? Well, what's noteworthy here?

[00:14:24] I mean, I took a lot of notes on this one, but, um, okay. Way to poke holes in my process. Why? Why? No, no, no, no. It's a lot of like, uh, plot details and things that I could read back and be like, okay, there's the movie back in my head. Okay. Which is perhaps a preview as to where I'm going, but I was going to say, you know, while this- I may need that notebook later on in this episode. While this isn't a comedy, obviously, uh, I will say from my days of going to critics screenings, anything with like, you know,

[00:14:54] anything comedic or with jokes people are supposed to laugh at, critics screenings are the worst, the absolute worst. And it's like just dead silence. I remember going to see, not that it's a great movie by any stretch, but night at the museum too, with a critic screening. And it was just like an hour 45 of just dead silence. And then people getting up and leaving. And I'm like, look, I get it. This movie is not very good,

[00:15:19] but that adds to the like oppressive feeling of unfunniness going on from the screen. It just was like a, like I would, it feels like a process. Like you just have to watch the film to do the review, to get the content out. Like you're just part of the chain. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, which is partly the reason why we waited for two weeks to put the review out, because we're just going to talk about it now instead of giving it press. Well, exactly. Yeah. Um, and you know,

[00:15:48] usually when a new film comes out, it's also good to talk about this off topic. We would do a declassified episode where we would sort of do a quick review. And then we would do a main review years down the line. Sometimes, sometimes we've done declassified. We haven't even touched since, uh, which we all get around to eventually. But this one, we just felt like, let's just, let's just do the review. Let's just do the main episode. It's unfortunate because this isn't the way I wanted to introduce the Jack Ryan series onto the podcast. Yeah.

[00:16:17] but you know, you kind of indicated to me, um, via text after seeing it. And I realized as well, after watching the movie, the odds of people having this movie in their minds in, I don't know, a year or two, whenever we get to the Jack Ryan stuff, it's just slim. And, you know, those chances are a few and far between. I felt like, you know, that's kind of an issue we could talk about. I think at length, when we talk about streaming films, which is like how they occupy almost no space in anyone's memories.

[00:16:47] And they are there for, Hey, it's the weekend. I got a Friday night free. I'll watch the new Jack Ryan streaming film. And then I'm off to other things. And if you ask me a year from now, what happened in it, I won't remember. And that is often more of a, um, criticism of the release pattern of these types of movies than the quality. Cause there have been good ones along the way that still had that same kind of memory hole thing going for them. Sure. so yeah, it just felt like we kind of had to do this one now because,

[00:17:17] you know, we did a declassified episode on without remorse, the Michael B. Jordan attempt to spin off his corner of the Ryan verse. Um, we have not tackled that movie again. Uh, we will do a full review and we do the Jack Ryan films, but tell me everyone, how much do you remember about without remorse right now? I remember one scene. I remember there was like a, was it a sniper battle or like a rooftop rifle battle kind of thing. That's what I remember.

[00:17:46] I remember a car on fire. Oh, okay. That's back in my head. Yeah. But very little has stuck with me. Whereas if you ask me about moments from clear and present danger, a movie I've seen once that I saw in 1994, I can actually remember several moments. Yeah, I'm the same. Uh, and, and like I watched, I mean, I've watched red October quite a few times, but I can remember parts of the sum of all fears. I think I've seen that twice in my life. I mean, I might say that,

[00:18:15] shadow recruit, uh, recruit might fall into a similar, similar memory hole situation, but yeah, it's interesting. Like there's an inverse in quality a little bit. There is a, there is a finesse, especially along the sort of Harrison Ford line. And we'll get to that when we do those films, but let's, let's get to ghost war. And if you're unfamiliar with ghost war, here is your synopsis. And in like any generic, uh, streaming film, such is the synopsis.

[00:18:45] And I didn't realize until now, but the film's full title is Tom Clancy's, Jack Ryan ghost war. I know. I was like, do I call it that when I write the title of the episode for the podcast? That's pretty fun. Yeah. Yeah. I think we now have to say it every time. And if you don't folks listening and watching ding us. So tell me the synopsis of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan ghost war. Uh, here it is. No operation stays dark forever.

[00:19:14] Jack Ryan is reluctantly pulled into espionage once again, when an international covert mission unravels a deadly conspiracy racing against time. He joins CIA allies, Mike November and James Greer and sharp MI6 officer, Emma Marlowe to battle the rogue black ops unit in a high stakes, deeply personal fight. Where was the deeply personal fight part? Well, okay. So that threw me initially,

[00:19:40] but it is deeply personal for the Greer character, not for Jack Ryan. And Marlowe, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say like, it is accurate, but, um, in terms of like having a huge impact on the life of Jack Ryan, not so much. No, no, perhaps not, but I guess it brings him back in. And by the end spoilers, he becomes the deputy director of the CIA. Yeah, I guess so. Progresses the character, I guess. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:20:10] Um, well, you know, I'm sure there is a story behind this film. How did we get Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan ghost war? Well, no one comes out and says it, uh, but I have to believe this is because John Krasinski has really blown up in the years, obviously with that show, but since as a director. Um, and so I think like the quiet place films have really put them on the map. Sure. And so I think he's going to be very busy just directing things in the future. He did the movie if,

[00:20:40] or imaginary friends, or is it IF? I don't know what it's called. I didn't see it, but it's that one. Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan ghost war games. But if, uh, didn't perform critically very well, but box office wise did fine. Like Krasinski has a directing career that's legit. So he is going to be developing projects going forward. I think he is actually doing the next quiet place film. Um, yeah. So this feels to me a little bit like, okay,

[00:21:08] he wasn't going to commit to any more Jack Ryan seasons. Cause the last season was only six episodes actually, which was down to from the previous seasons. Um, how do we continue this? Because clearly people really like that series on Amazon. And this is kind of the alternative. Can we get him to do a movie every couple of years when he's kind of between projects? That's what this feels like to me. But of course, no one is going to come out and actually say that in the press. No, uh,

[00:21:38] I think I text you. That's what I think this was. Hmm. Uh, that, that it was really a way to get Krasinski back. Yeah. In the, into the, the character because obviously it makes them money. They can publicize John Krasinski and they can put ghost war. Sorry. Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan goes to war on the side of a bus. And it's actually very similar to the Michelle Yeoh in section 31, where that was developed as a TV series. They weren't going to get her on a TV series,

[00:22:08] especially after she wins an Oscar. And so it was like, well, but we can get her for a one-off movie. Maybe that will be that. Maybe that'll work out. Maybe she'll come back in a couple of years and do another movie. Didn't work out for them at all, but I could see a similar pattern where it's like, we have a, you know, a star that is kind of gotten to a point where they don't want to do ongoing serialized television. How can we continue that kind of universe for fans and keep these actors going?

[00:22:37] Which perfectly fine. I have no problem with this. It makes sense. Logistically makes sense. Probably financially makes sense. Why not? Yeah, exactly. So this is of course, based on Tom Clancy's enduring CIA protagonist who first appeared in the 1984 novel, the hunt for red October. Now I had a question for you, Scott, we're going to play a little bit of guessing on your part. How many books are there at time of recording in the Ryan verse?

[00:23:05] Are we talking books written by Tom Clancy or books written by people who are like the, the, the children of Tom Clancy as it were. Okay. Let's just say the Ryan verse and we'll get more specific in a second. Well, I remember you telling me that the Remo Williams verse had over a hundred books. So I'm going to, I'm going to beat it by 150 and call it 250. No, no, it's 47 books in the Ryan verse. Now, how many,

[00:23:35] how many did Tom Clancy write? Four. Okay. And I should say, how many did Tom Clancy write by himself? Four? 12 actually. Okay. And he did five with other writers. And since then, there are 16 post-Clancy Jack Ryan novels. And there's also 14 spinoff novels built around the character of Jack Ryan jr. jr. So it is a very healthy brand.

[00:24:04] And that's interesting because I remember I was a big reader of the Dirk Pitt series that Clive Cussler wrote. And it got to a point where it started doing Dirk jr. novels as well. And I was like, really? Maybe it's a literary character. He can kind of go forever. Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan jr. Ghost War. Do you think they'll ever make a movie? Jack Ryan jr. Any, like anything, any sort of like subtitle on that? No. Good Lord. Yeah. Unless they just did an animated series in the style of the sort of

[00:24:34] funimation from the eighties, like James Bond jr. Then I would, I would watch that. Sure. Who wouldn't? I mean, kids would love Jack Ryan adventures brought to them at the age of eight. I can't wait to see a submarine battle done in James Bond jr. Style. That would be amazing. So, uh, the story and, uh, screenplay credit is shared here by John Krasinski. I'm not going to talk about him too much as an actor. Uh, we'll do that later on, but like, sure.

[00:25:04] What's interesting to me is more him as this sort of behind the scenes, creative force. Um, you know, he's doing the office of course, as an actor, that's where he gets his big breakout, but he's interested in movies. Like almost immediately. Cause he is directing episodes of the office over the course of the run of that, but he did a indie movie. He wrote and directed in 2009 called brief interviews with hideous men, which I starred in. He co-wrote the 2009 Gus Van Sant film, promise land starring Matt Damon,

[00:25:33] which is not one of Matt Damon's better remembered films. Uh, I've never seen it. Um, and he, uh, directed the 2016 indie, the hollers, which again, one that didn't really connect with anyone, but 2018 quiet place comes around. And that is a movie that's huge, makes massive money. He writes and directs it. He comes back, writes and directs quiet place part two, which was a pandemic release, but still did very well. And,

[00:26:03] uh, you know, then he got to just basically be like, I'm a producer on quiet place day one. And I'll collect some of the profits off that too. I mean, he, he kind of birthed that universe. So I, I understand him getting some kickback. That's, that's fine. Yeah. Um, I really think that universe is, I, I'm happy for him to like, take it in a different direction than just looking at this little family unit, but I have no interest in following those, that family anymore. No, but I watched day one, which was like, I guess the prequel.

[00:26:32] I actually didn't see it. It really wasn't much of a prequel. Um, but it kind of was like, okay, this is, this feels like there's a lot of limited appeal here. Um, fun gimmick, but. Well, cause they've only got like, they're like a one dimensional baddie in the sense of they hit to kill things and they respond to sound. What, what else is there? Yeah. And the characters figure out the sound gimmick like immediately. So you're like, well, why did it take them so long in the, uh, original film to figure it out? You know, it just, uh, or like how to beat them, I should say. You know,

[00:27:02] it just is like, okay, it was fine. It was totally fine. But anyways, he shared a story credit on this film with Noah Oppenheim, who's an Arizona, Arizona born producer and writer. Also the president of NBC news. This movie had a story credit from the president of NBC news. I mean, everyone needs a hobby. It's well, this guy has a fascinating filmography because obviously sit back folks. Enjoy.

[00:27:32] Cam's going to spin a yarn for us all. So like his first credits, he's like a senior producer on hardball with Chris Matthews, which was an NBC news show. He also does the series today for NBC news, which runs 643 episodes, uh, he's working on. And then he like starts dabbling in screenwriting. He works on 2014, the maze runner. He does the, uh, I think third, third divergent film, Allegiant.

[00:28:01] So he's like writing YA films in his spare time. Uh, he writes Jackie, the, um, Jackie O biopic with Natalie Portman, which was like a real critical darling. I think she got a best actress nomination for that. And more recently he worked on the Catherine Bigelow house of dynamite film for Netflix. So interesting. This is actually his followup to dynamite. Boy, was it explosive. So story credit, as I said,

[00:28:32] Krasinski works on the actual screenplay with Aaron Raven, who's a writer producer started out. He made a short, um, in 2007 called the light rains, did a couple of low profile jobs and then joined the series, Jack Ryan as a writer and co-executive producer in season four. Um, he's not someone with a huge filmography, but he did Jack Ryan. He was a consulting producer on secret invasion, the Marvel, uh, miniseries, which was horrendous. Um, a credit you do not want on your IMDB.

[00:29:02] I mean, consulting producers are pretty safe one, right? Cause it's like, well, what did he actually do? Come on. Yeah. But you can't go into a room and say like, I worked on secret invasion. And you're like, Oh, did you? Oh, I'm sorry. Get out. I'm sorry for you and your family. Didn't pay off. He also, uh, co-wrote, uh, last year's nobody too, uh, with Bob Odenkirk, the sequel to that action film. Nobody turned up to.

[00:29:31] I saw it in the theater. It was fine. It was fine. Was anyone else there, Cam? Uh, there was enough people. I, I, I, I was not the only person in the room. You and your imaginary friends once again. Exactly. Yes. And this is his followup to nobody too. The ghosts. And the movie is directed by Andrew Bernstein. Who's, you know, a director and producer started out as a second, second assistant director on 1994's little big league,

[00:29:59] which was a baseball movie that was very popular when I was a kid. Uh, he also worked on 12 monkeys in the same job title, moved up to second 80 and worked on movies like flipper eraser, the Schwarzenegger film, Batman and Robin, and how the grint stole Christmas. I mean, it's not quite Batman forever, but a few films are, but that's like a collection of movies that everyone knows. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's not bad credits to have. I mean, I'll take them.

[00:30:30] No. Then he becomes the first AD on the West wing and works on that show for 55 episodes. Wait, hang on now. As a West wing guy, can you tell me what seasons he worked on? Uh, he directed in season six and seven. I can say that. Oh, is that the rough seasons? Yes. The gas leak is. Uh, okay. Well, um, yeah. Okay. So he, he directed just a handful of episodes and they were in six and seven. Uh, he also, uh,

[00:30:58] was working on shows and directing episodes of mad men, ER house, the walking dead, Ozark. And he did seeing all of these shows. Right. And then he did three episodes of Jack Ryan and produce season two of the show. Okay. And this film is his followup to working on the series. It welcome to dairy, uh, which aired just this past year. Uh, so I looked at the interview with him, uh, and he was talking about what he was kind of going for with this movie.

[00:31:29] Mm hmm. And he said he, first off the standalone story thing was what he said, you know, that I mentioned earlier, but he wanted this film to feel inspired by 70 spy films and the French connection. That was a pregnant pause. Yeah. Yeah. I, I was, Hey, you can want all you want. Do you know what though? This is something I, I don't know if I get tired of it, but I begin to roll my eyes at,

[00:31:59] which is like directors or writers or whoever's interviewed saying this film or TV series or whatever. It was inspired by this famous movie. Now, in some cases when I'm watching like, um, you know, captain America winter soldier and they say, this is inspired by parallax view and three days of the condor. I can say, okay, tone wise. No, no, but I can see the connective tissue. I can see the inspirations are taking from a storytelling point of view.

[00:32:29] When I hear someone say that the French connection was an inspiration for Jack Ryan ghost war. Whoa, whoa. I just, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan ghost war. Cute. Uh, I really can't connect those two things in my head. I mean, like pulling back the, the veneer, pulling back the, how the sausage is made. I don't know what I'm pulling back. Maybe the cover of the sausage, who knows? But, um, the,

[00:32:57] the reason he was asked that question is because people write these questions for interviews. We've often asked people, uh, who make films, what we, what inspiration was. And we don't tend to challenge them on that when the film is nothing like it. I remember we had Lee Tamahori on who directed die another day and he was citing stuff like from Russia with love. And you, I mean, you, you can't see that film in die another day. You just can't. Right. Um, but this isn't like,

[00:33:25] it's not us trying to be snark theater here. It's more of a case of this film has nothing to do with the films you just mentioned. If you were to say there was something that you could make a parallel between this and the French connection. And I mean, you have to think about it. What would it be? I think I have an answer. Between this and the French connection. Yeah. I think you just have about five minutes and be thinking in silence. So why don't you just tell us what you think? I'm wondering if he meant like kind of the like gritty car chases through

[00:33:52] London compared to like the car chases in New York. Sure. Sure. I don't agree in terms of the success of one sequence versus the other, but I wonder if that was kind of the idea, like what they were going for there. Maybe like as a motif perhaps. Yeah. Um, but it isn't like, it isn't tonally like the French connection. No, there is no, there's no grit in this film. And it's not like the French connection too either.

[00:34:21] So I don't, I don't know, but, um, they did say they wanted this to be the next evolutionary step for Jack Ryan, uh, which I buy time will tell if the evolution continues or how it continues. Um, because I think we'll get to our thoughts now. Well, I, and also just, I think it's best to temper our expectations a little bit because this is a TV movie. Sure. A hundred percent. Yeah. Like when we were doing the man from uncle films,

[00:34:50] we were not holding them up to the same level as golden eye or contemporaneously like thunder ball or gold finger. They did not have the same money. Yeah. No, that's true. Yeah. It's fair enough. Yeah. Any more for us? No. Uh, I think we get to our thoughts on the film. Okay. Well, let's get right to it. Uh, well, I actually stopped the presses because one thing we didn't mention in the behind the scenes,

[00:35:19] and I was meant to mention it, but I didn't think about it. I was actually there. One of the days this film was shot. Oh, were you? Okay. Yeah. I'm getting really bored of your, yes, this was shot near my house because every second spy film is in London. Well, perhaps so. I mean, one, some of the motorway shots was shot on the motorway near my house, but more importantly, and it's kind of got a bond connection. I was doing a James Bond walking tour of London because I'm a massive fucking nerd and, uh,

[00:35:49] led by Timothy Stiles. Shout out to listeners that show Tim Stiles. Thank you for that. And, uh, yeah, we were just walking around St. Paul's Cathedral, just doing this bond connections there and stuff. And, uh, we go to walk down the street and the streets closed off. Right. And we're like, why is the street closed off? And then they say, oh, we're filming something. And then I start to look and I see the actor who I ends up playing James Greer in this film. And then I asked one of the people who were guarding it. I said, oh, it's a,

[00:36:18] it's the, um, Jack Ryan film. Okay. Yeah. I was like, oh, okay. And then seeing that in the film, it is basically where the cars pull up at the end of the London, like chase and are shooting at each other. And the James is like defending himself in the car against all the assailants. And then Jack Ryan pulls up and smacks him out of the way. That's what I watched getting shot. Wow. So I was there. Cool. Actually, you were there. I was in the room where it happened. Unfortunately, actually, I can't say unfortunately, one of the best bits of the film. Um,

[00:36:48] but you're right. Let's, let's get into it. Let's not belabor the point. Um, what do we think of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan ghost war? Well, it's definitely a TV movie. Mm. I, I really struggled with this one, not in the sense of like feeling particularly offended by it. It was just so bold down the middle, middle of the road,

[00:37:18] nothing particularly fancy that I was just sort of, I existed in the room for an hour and 14 minutes, watched it as a, as like I was absorbing something and then left. I don't think I actually ever felt anything during the process. I don't think I got a better knowledge of the characters. I said, perhaps the, uh, the, the British MI six lady who, uh, just getting the name of the actress who I've seen other things and actually quite like Sienna Miller. Yeah. Uh, who I think it does a pretty good job with it. Um, and it's new,

[00:37:47] new to the series, like for this film. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm, there's no baggage. I'm just coming in fresh in that one. Um, John Krasinski is a good lead. There's no problem in that department. The characters around him feel like they have a story, but I feel like I'm reading the seventh book in a series. Hmm. And I'm really, and like, luckily I know some of the people, I know some of the missions they've gone on already from seeing the films. So I can kind of extrapolate where I am,

[00:38:15] but the film doesn't really suffer fools in, giving you any information as to why people are connected. There's a, there's like a tech guy. They call up two thirds through. And I think it's meant to be this sort of like, Oh my God, the starship's coming. It's the enterprise or something akin to like, yeah, let's I point. And I, I understood that reference and I didn't understand that reference at all. And so it's lost on me. Um, the action feels pretty pedestrian.

[00:38:46] None of the comedy lands. And the bad guy is very uninspired. So I think I'd walked out of it going, yeah, that was fine. Fine. Like, like, I wasn't offended by it. I wasn't actively like you mentioned some of the other things we, I've been to press screenings for. I walked out of section 31 wanting to hurt people. Sure. I was actively offended by, I mean, I am also a card carrying Trekkie. So there was baggage.

[00:39:16] I'm not a Jack Ryan fan per se. I haven't got the, the baggage. We use that word again, like I do with James Bond or mission impossible or anything like that. I'm coming in mostly fresh and I'm seeing Krasinski as Jack Ryan for the first time. And he seems pretty fully formed. I can't really complain with that. Um, I mean, he gives up his job pretty easily to go back to the CIA, which I think is probably something he struggled with for a whole season in the last season, I would guess. And really just gave that up very quickly. Uh, but yeah,

[00:39:46] like holistically I was unmoved. That's where I sit. Like I, it's, it's not a one star. It's not a five star. It's probably a two star. Yeah. This was one for me that I struggled mightily with. Um, because you know, you mentioned like, you know, we've talked about section 31. Yeah. Section 31 was an absolute disaster. Yeah. Uh,

[00:40:11] an absolute unmitigated disaster in terms of stretching something like that into a film. Yeah. But that movie, that streaming film made choices. It did things that you sat there and you went, Oh my God, I can't believe, you know, that they did that. Um, it was, it was offensive as a star Trek fan, right? Not in terms of like problematic content, but just in terms of as a Star Trek fan, you're like, what the hell have they done? Yeah.

[00:40:40] And yet like, I go, well, that film made crazy choices. It was doing things that were reaching for something. God knows what, but that they were saying, we want to push Star Trek into a place that it hasn't really been done before, which is kind of a guardians of the galaxy riff. Or shouldn't. Or shouldn't. You can, sure. But if it's successful, maybe like you feel differently. Maybe you go, that was a lot of fun. I enjoyed that. I don't know. We, the execution was terrible.

[00:41:11] The problem with this one is, this is so unimaginative, so uninteresting. And just from the point of view of like, let's write an espionage plot. Boring as all hell. Yeah. And I just began to sit there and go like, why is this worth, you know, an hour 45 of my time? And I can almost guarantee while I have never watched the show,

[00:41:39] this is not representative of what viewers are probably getting watching a season of Jack Ryan, the TV series. If I am going only by looking at say the IMDB scores of the show versus this film. Oh, see, I haven't looked at any of that. Okay. It is. I think like the, the show is like an 8.0 and the film so far is a 5.9 and these things start high and then go downwards. So I just sat there going like,

[00:42:05] whatever charm existed in this show seems to have been drained out in this format. And I don't care about, you know, like nods to the show that I don't get. That's, that's on me. That's on me. Like there was a older British guy who like gave them words of encouragement at the very end of this film. Yeah. I don't know who that character is, but I go, that's on me. I didn't watch the show so I could just go, okay, he's an important figure in MI6.

[00:42:35] I'll just go with that. Yeah. Um, and same with like the hacker dude. I go, well, clearly it's a character from the show, but you know what? He fulfills a purpose on, in the film. He's like the hacker helper. I can just go with that. But that's not any of my criticisms with this. I don't care if there's like Easter eggs or nods that I don't pick up on. What I care about is did they craft an hour 45 minute espionage action story that's interesting? No,

[00:43:04] I feel like they fell so completely flat on their faces in every conceivable way that I go, how is this necessarily worse than something than section like section 31, which is more egregious in what it's doing, but this is actively making no interesting choices whatsoever. That is almost to me in a way more offensive. I think it's an interesting point in like, in a more metatextual conversation about art. Yeah.

[00:43:31] Like art that isn't even trying to inspire. Is it, is there a point to it? Like if you're, yeah, if you're not reaching for something, why are you trying? And I could probably agree with you on that wavelength, but, and I didn't think I would come out defending this film, but sometimes people want beige. Sure. Like you, you want chicken nuggets and chips for dinner. Like that's okay. Like if that's what you want, that's okay. Maybe don't have it every night. Maybe have a salad the second night,

[00:44:00] but chicken nuggets and chips is fine for one. This is chicken nugget and chips with no seasoning and no condiments on the side. It is beige with the side of beige, all done in your oven in 20 minutes. What an analogy, eh? Like what, what a great analogy. I think I nailed that. My film criticism is getting better and better. Which I mean, it's not encouraging and it's not the, the,

[00:44:28] the greatest thing to review either, because it's like, well, okay, if we just take that as they were just trying to make like filler for people, if they're making filler, why are they even hosting critic premieres? Like, why would you even bother? Yeah. Like it came out. Well, like they did the critic premieres the day before it came out. Like just like, that's a bad look. I feel like they thought they had something a little more than they had is my guess. Maybe. But yeah,

[00:44:58] I just wanted it to be more than it was. I just was like hoping for something like, give me something like, give me a fun, like moment of action or give me a moment of a villain. That's interesting. I think the London chase sequences is okay. I mean, it's fine. It's fine. It's not okay. When the benchmark on this film is like so low, that felt like it was worth something. I would probably side more with maybe the shootout at the end over the chase. I don't, the chase was kind of just a,

[00:45:28] uh, nothing to me. It's just a shootout in an office. Like, what are we learning from that? The glass floors was a decision. Hmm. Yeah. Not a fan. Um, the other thing I think was worth mentioning. Maybe I should leave it for my dislikes. Actually, I will. I'll leave that for the dislikes. Let's, I mean, we both clearly didn't enjoy it. We both clearly got through it. Uh, like an enema. Um,

[00:45:58] we sat there and we took it. Um, quote, spy hearts podcast. This film was like an enema. You can put that on your poster folks. If you'd like, that's your pull quote for you. Uh, they didn't ask us into the screening. Funnily enough for the pull quotes. Didn't care. And also, interestingly, when I go to these premieres, I, I go to the spy ones. I would get invited to a lot of non-spy ones. I don't go to, but when I go to the, most of them, they say like, this is embargoed until X date,

[00:46:28] but it didn't do the screenings until the day before. So they didn't say there was an embargo. I could have walked out and immediately recorded this and put it out. Yeah. I just didn't care. Well, I saw people posting just letterbox reviews. If going off of those screenings and whatever too. Yeah. So yeah. Um, well, let's talk about things at work. There has to be some ups to, for there to be some downs. You have to have both things, uh, bring balance to the force. I think John Krasinski is a good lead. Yeah.

[00:46:58] I think, I think he handles himself well. He looks like a, a, you know, an action hero. The problem with that is to my knowledge, Jack Ryan is not meant to be an action hero. I mean, you're right, but at the same time, they always cast people like Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, you know, but then like Ben Affleck in the sum of all fears spends most of it in a computer room. I feel like that's the reason that these movies haven't been hugely successful since, Harrison Ford left the role. I think that, well, yeah,

[00:47:27] that was always the tough part of Jack Ryan is he's an analyst. I mean, we get a little bit, bit of that here where he's going and talking about like, it's like a 20 second scene of him being like, Oh, the markets are up, but this could be bad. Like, okay, well, there's some great insights, but it felt like that is this film paying lip service to the analyst part. Well, there's a couple of that where he has like those like breakthrough thoughts that they come through and solve moments of the plot needing solving,

[00:47:57] but it doesn't really feel like a natural thing for him. You think of it like he presents himself as an operator. Yeah. Yeah. Something that you would see in like the, the Jack cars series, which is fine, but that's not what I see. Jack Ryan in my head. Yeah. I mean, like, um, it does feel like it's, they're trying to get a gun in this man's hand as quickly as possible. Yeah. Even, even, even off the top where there's the chase scene,

[00:48:25] which is total filler of him walking or like jogging down the street, listening to his music. And then all these cars start pulling up and it's him running, ducking into restaurant, uh, like in the kitchens, which boy, is that a cliche at this point, huh? Yeah. Going through the kitchen. Uh, but it's ultimately all his like friends just showing up to see him. One of these days, can they, can they go for a kitchen and there's no one cooking? Yeah, exactly. Like it's always full of chefs. Like one guy's like flipping something on a frying pan or whatever, or it's like, you know,

[00:48:54] some sort of Asian dish, uh, always because you get the flames. It looks like it's electric. It's, it's, it's energetic. Uh, you want action to be happening as he runs through. I just want them to come in and like, and they've cleared off for the day. There's always someone with a cleaver. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I thought, I thought the Jads are mopping up. Like they've just had a long day to just clean in the kitchen. That's, that's what I want. And being like, we're closed, sir. Sorry. Who let you back here? Sorry. I, we want to go home. Yeah. It's late.

[00:49:24] We have families. We only get paid minimum wage. I mean, what, what are you doing? Yeah. And he's like, I'm sorry. I mean, I'm just, I'm sorry. I just, I didn't know. I mean, I'm Jack Ryan. Does that mean anything? No. Okay. Oh, the world famous analyst. Oh yeah, that's me. How are the markets, sir? Oh, you should address me by my full title. Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. Oh, of course. Of course. That's his legal name.

[00:49:54] TCJR. Is that where Jack Ryan Jr. comes from? Because it's also JR. Probably. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. Boo. Well, you know, same thing with dark pit. It is what it is. DP. Oh, sorry, Clive Kessler. Rest in peace. Bad choice. Uh oh. Pull up, Clive. Yep. I've got my autographed photo of Clive Kessler. I'll weep over it later.

[00:50:22] I have no idea who that is. Well, but that's fine. But I think, I think Krasinski handles himself well. Obviously, I think the problem that we're talking about is more scripting than performance. So I think he does a good job with being the leader of the film. And he's the most charismatic one in the film. Well, it's so interesting. I remember when John Krasinski was, you know, up for the Captain America role. Sure. And it seemed like Marvel was kind of floating that one out to see what the feedback was.

[00:50:51] And the feedback was not positive. It was coming after, you know, the office and a couple of his attempts to kind of break outside of that mold. And to varying degrees. And people just weren't having it. And so they went with what was the more popular choice, it seemed publicly, with Chris Evans. Sure. Really, really fucked that one up, didn't I? Well, you know, that turned out great. But like, at the time, it seemed almost like a joke. But it kind of reminds me of the like,

[00:51:21] you know, with casting directors. A good casting director sees something that people, like other people don't. The general public doesn't. They go, the hair is not the right color. Or something like that, right? Like, you know, that's not the face I imagine. Blonde Bond. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. The face doesn't match what I think it should look like. Or whatever. But it's like a good casting director sees something. Clearly, Marvel saw something in John Krasinski. Or else he wouldn't have been floated out there. He wouldn't have been someone who would be moving along the testing phase.

[00:51:51] And I think like, this show and film, you know, by extension, trades off of that very well. Because he has like, kind of that, almost like, earnest guy next door, kind of look. But at the same time, very convincing in the action. Earnest goes to a ghost war. That's the film I want to see. Earnest God. No, I get why he is in this position. Because he kind of looks like the nerdy guy turned action hero. That's a combination you want here.

[00:52:20] Which is kind of what I guess Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan should be. Yeah. They've all looked the part. Chris, Chris Pine, Ben Affleck. Yeah, they look kind of like action heroes in their own way. Not so much, what's his name? Who was the first one? Alec Baldwin. Yeah. I never really bought him as an action hero. Not at that time period. And he really only dabbled in it. Because he was doing stuff like The Shadow

[00:52:51] after Hunt for October. But he never went full action, really. No. But I've cited a like. What do you think? I would say for me, like, the locations. And that it felt like it was making good use of locations. Yeah. A lot of the times when we tackle, especially streaming films, it feels like, okay, we're shooting this all in Georgia and we'll throw background plates down to make it look like we're somewhere. Or we'll get an establishing shot of like, you know, the Eiffel Tower. And it's like, hey,

[00:53:20] we're in New York. It's like, no, you're clearly not in New York. Whereas I felt like here, they found interesting places. I really liked that. I think it was an RAF base. Yeah. That they, yeah, had a whole section in. It's just very distinct visually. And if you aren't going to spend a lot of money and they weren't going to spend a ton on a streaming film, you may notice the complete lack of extras in this movie, you know, they were finding ways to save money. But I appreciated that, you know,

[00:53:50] they have like, you know, they're showing like the Thames River and you get like them, you know, with all the lights on the Thames. Thank you for pronouncing it correctly. There are so many people in North America that call it the Thames. I'm so glad I know you. Yeah. So it's like, get your value where you can. And if they're going to go to these locations, do what you can. Like showing off Tower Bridge, look fantastic. Like, so these types of movies at their core

[00:54:19] are these kind of globe hopping spy stories. And that's what James Bond does really well. James Bond has more money to play with. They can go a little more in depth with their locations. They have access to things that other productions don't. But there's just so many that don't really do anything or just kind of, I can't remember what movie it was. Go on. It's popping into my head. It may have been The Union, the Mark Wahlberg one we watched on Netflix. Yeah. Where they went to like 17 locations, but it was clearly shot in two.

[00:54:50] Maybe. I just remember them being inside the BT Tower for some reason. Yeah. It may not have been The Union, but it was something like that we watched relatively recently where it was just like this grab bag of locations. They were going to a new location every 30 seconds in the film, but it was very clear they didn't really go anywhere. I don't recall. I've obviously purged it from my memory, but I believe you. Yeah. I mean, it's a common problem. It should not just tie it to The Union, a movie that no one remembers now,

[00:55:19] but it is a common problem in the world of streaming films. Sure. And I will also add, and this was actually a dislike I had, but seeing as you're bringing up locations, the London stuff's great. But really, the title of this film should be Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Ghost War sponsored by the United Arab Emirates. Yeah, that is a big part of it. There's a lot of it shot in Dubai, which is fine. I'm sure Dubai paid money for that.

[00:55:49] It's very pro that in its own way, which is quite odd for a geopolitical character in a very geopolitical world to have like, check out the Dubai police force, have a Bugatti. Isn't that great? Honk, honk. Yeah, you're really picking the side there, aren't you? And they're like, yeah, saving the day at the end because that's who they make a deal with to help foil the villain. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm not coming down on any side of anything, particularly.

[00:56:19] Good people on both sides, Cam, didn't you know? But it's just odd. Like, it just adds a little sense of like ickiness to it. Like, it just feels like it's funded by something. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and there is a lot of product placement in this in general. Yeah. Which, honestly, probably pays the bills for these movies too. I will say that the main image that's being used, I think it's an image from the trailer on IMDb, has a Sports Direct in the background,

[00:56:47] which I absolutely love because it's the cheapest like sports clothes place in the UK. And somehow they managed to stay in the film. They probably paid for it. So well done, Sports Direct. You're in a Jack Ryan film. We salute you. We interrupt this program to bring you a special report. Agents, we don't expect you to talk. We expect you to buy a subscription to our Patreon. Eee, that's right. Over on the Spy Hearts Patreon, we're covering

[00:57:17] all your favorite spy TV shows as well as popular films from the most iconic secret agent actors of all time. Cam, why don't you share some intel on our latest assignment? Well, Scott, when we get ready to record our next batch of Patreon episodes, it's the perfect time to check out our releases from the month of May. We took a journey to the stars with Solo, a Star Wars story, and Star Trek Nemesis. We also, of course, took a look at the

[00:57:46] premiere episode of Alias from 2001. How does Jennifer Garner's debut as Sidney Bristow hold up all these years later? Tune in and find out. So deactivate Ghost Protocol and visit patreon.com slash spyhards to truly do things angel style. But before we close, Channel D, on with the Spy Jinx. But, for all good things, there must be bad.

[00:58:15] I did sort of talk about the sponsored by section. I think there are more bad things to talk about. And I want to talk about the plot and the villain. I am actually glad you said that because I was in the exact same boat. Yeah, I mean, I've seen Max Beasley in other stuff. I've seen Max Beasley be interesting in other stuff. Like, he's a long-working actor. So, yeah. Yeah, he's Operation Fortune. He's in that. I remember being fun in that. I'm just looking back through.

[00:58:45] He's been in lots and lots and lots of things. I'm sure you've all seen him in something before. But it wouldn't matter if you've seen him in this because he's so disposable and replaceable. He could be entirely AI. Yeah, this is like a real problem because in these types of movies, you want a villain that's at least interesting. And he is just a blank slate of a character. And this is someone who, you know, you mentioned in the synopsis, this story is personal. It's personal. You know, you get like the James Greer

[00:59:15] character played by Wendell Pierce whose feet are really being held over the fire over these indiscretions he had 20 years ago where he created the Starling group who they mention are an unsanctioned black ops team. They love those. As soon as they said that term, I wrote it down because that's such a common term to hear thrown around. But, you know, they did a lot of dirty things and now you have this character who's this remnant of Starling trying to bring back these terrorist groups

[00:59:45] that, you know, had kind of fallen in the wake of Starling. Okay, that's something. That's sort of interesting. It's definitely reminiscent of something you hear in like a Bourne film but you know what? Bourne books, Clancy books, they're all kind of from the same cloth, right? But it's the way they convey it. It's really just coming down to like MacGuffin stuff. We need to get this to this special building and download a bunch of people's photos from a hard drive for reasons.

[01:00:15] For reasons. And we get, you know, like at the start of the movie the setup of two people attempting this and falling victim to your bad guy and then Jack Ryan and his friends going back and doing that at the end. And if you don't have an interesting villain who's driving this it's just it's so generic. It's so completely generic as a story that you need something to pop. And if the villain ain't popping then you're really really in trouble because I kept sitting there through the movie going like

[01:00:44] you know, John Krasinski has a lot going on on his, you know, plate these days they're getting him back. The show has been over since 2023. This should be like something of an event for them. Like they I would imagine be excited about okay, we're going to do a movie. Cool. We're bringing some of the cast back. You know, that's something we've got Sienna Miller an actress of some renown who's coming in as well. Okay. We're going to like you know, jet set all over the world and do this. Okay, cool.

[01:01:13] And this is like the story they settled on. It almost feels like an afterthought which is really damning because I can sit and watch like an idiot plot where I go like my god what were they thinking these mad men behind the scenes whereas this is a case where it's like I don't know just connect the dots and then give our characters endless exposition to just explain what's going on and what they're telling you isn't interesting because the story itself the plot isn't interesting. Well, I think about like

[01:01:45] one of the things you mentioned that this syndicate it's not syndicate what are they called? Starling. Starling. Not the most interesting name. No. They're bringing back these terrorist plots and one of them is sort of foiled by going to this guy's house and they find out he was trying to build bombs. Yeah. And it turns out to be a trick-a-rooney and actually going after the boss guy and his wife great but you think about

[01:02:14] something like Slow Horses which is a similar thing. Yeah. Old style terrorism plot coming back and it's doing it in stages and there's a moment where they go to a guy's house and they find it full of bomb stuff and then they detonate it and kill everyone inside and it really hits you in that moment and you're like oh this is real. There's no impact in this film. There's no moment of like holding your breath. Thrillers are meant to twist meant to turn meant to make you

[01:02:44] question things meant to make you sort of catch your breath and be like wow I didn't see that coming. I saw everything coming here and it's not because I've been doing spy movies for seven years it's because this is bog standard chat GPT write me a spy story and this is the first thing it prints out with no prompts. Yeah and there is a character killed I mean we're in spoilers but the Elizabeth Wright character played by Betty Gabriel who was an ongoing presence on the show

[01:03:13] is given a death scene and I think that's supposed to be the twist like that's maybe also a big part of the it's personal stuff and I'm like torn because on one hand it's again didn't watch the show so the meaning of this character's death isn't going to hit me in the same way but I think there's always ways to write characters where they are popping and you feel something when they go and I remember like watching you know Serenity the Joss Whedon film

[01:03:43] and he kills two characters in the film and the one he does out front early in the movie I remember as someone who had not watched the show it just fell so completely flat that you needed the show to actually get any sort of meaning out of it whereas the one later in the film did have an impact on you even if you've just watched the movie so I think there's like a very delicate way to write these types of characters who are recurring presences that you're going to bring into a film

[01:04:13] and have those deaths mean something because within the context of this story alone this character's death is not interesting no you have no buy into the character apart from the fact that she sort of purports to be like a ride or die for James Greer yeah yeah it's just and maybe if you did this as a normal film that had no TV show before it maybe you had the exact same problem and it wouldn't mean anything but I don't really care about

[01:04:42] James Reese either so like him losing his partner I guess that's sad but it's hardly like inspiration for this whole thing was it actually his partner or was that just like I don't know I think it was more like protege or something sure I don't know listen folks if you're a fan of the show don't at us we haven't seen it we told you up front but and the film doesn't make it clear and that's the film's fault not ours yeah and then it's kind of like what is

[01:05:11] the purpose of it because they're saying they want standalone and you know it's kind of connected actually I went and saw The Mandalorian and Grogu this weekend and that is a show that has quite a bit of mythology sure when they're going to transplant it to a film that's three seasons of television that hey we want this to be a cinematic effort we want people to turn up to this who've never watched the show and enjoy a Star Wars movie and I took my girlfriend Sue who'd never watched The Mandalorian

[01:05:40] and I would say they did actually a pretty good job in creating a film around the character that sells both the characters while being incredibly inviting to someone who's never watched the show I don't think you ever have to have watched the show to get on board with who the characters are because it is like a side mission but at the same time they sell the relationships and this movie clearly doesn't have the money of Mandalorian and Grogu but money isn't the important thing it's the

[01:06:10] writing it's can you write the characters in a way where their relationships are sold in a way where they connect with you and I just felt like this movie was too often kind of lazily just saying whatever people get it we don't have to worry about that and they were so much more focused on the pyrotechnics of it which in a way is kind of cynical because then you're saying well people don't care about the relationships just give them enough action and they don't care I think ultimately I made the joke

[01:06:40] about chat GPT I think this is that exactly that this is a film tailored for people who are folding laundry yeah yeah like it's restacking of the plot constantly it is like quick give them an action sequence to wake them up and then they can look at their phones again to buy more Amazon products and that's it and it has no higher aspiration which you know I don't think the filmmakers of that film are going to listen to this review and if you are I'm sorry I

[01:07:10] guess but I'm also not sorry because you made this film it has no aspirations to be anything higher than what you're saying yeah I mean I couldn't believe just in terms of dialogue there was a bit where Jack Ryan was giving exposition about what torrents are and I was like you've got to be kidding me maybe that just speaks to our generation though like try and tell what a torrent is to like a 15 year old they've grown up with Apple

[01:07:43] watching Jack Ryan or Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan no store 50 camp 50 year olds that's what I said 5-0 that's the Jack Ryan fan base right there yeah I was gonna say though in terms of like the story wait that's our fan base oh no I was gonna say too in terms of like the kind of the sloppiness of a lot of the storytelling a quick side detour that I just remembered but like the 20 years ago flashback with

[01:08:12] Wendell Pierce playing 20 years younger was amazing uh it's all in that choppy slow-mo that got a big laugh out of me but moving forward you get the whole shootout at the end and a big part of it is a big like kind of climactic moment is Sienna Miller being shot from behind right and going down um she seemed fine at the end and that was like minutes afterwards too like it wasn't like she'd had six months of recuperation and then was coming back it was literally

[01:08:42] she'd left the building it's like she's like sitting leaning against a car smoking a cigarette and my girlfriend says wasn't she just shot and I'm like when sue picks up on it you know there's a problem

[01:09:14] but I'll say like my dislike I'm gonna kind of connect it to yours because like no don't connect it to me I can't really take shots at like the action stuff because I

[01:09:44] Jack Ryan this movie is about Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan I felt like he was a passenger most of this movie yeah he wasn't really an active participant it's really a James Reese story or whatever he's James Greer sorry James Reese is a Jack Carr character yeah yeah yeah and it was such an odd choice because if you want to stand alone you'd think you'd want to make Jack Ryan a little more dynamic

[01:10:14] watching these films if they keep making them and it was just odd how he really felt like he was in the back seat getting exposition most of it and as you said Greer really does take the center stage for most of the dramatic material and Sienna Miller a little bit too and Sienna Miller too yeah and it

[01:10:44] there with everyone else and he's just kind of like there it doesn't feel like they're giving him like kind of the presence you'd hope for in terms looking

[01:11:14] cool with like the Jack Ryan logo and it's all over Amazon tiles and you know marketing materials all that kind of stuff people are tuning in clearly because they love that character and they love his handle on that character whereas I spent much

[01:11:44] in a cinematic sort of way whereas this character was this version of the character was born in television and I mean we've seen television characters turn into film characters we were talking about Star Trek earlier we often talk about Star Trek that happened with a lot of the TV shows sometimes the translation isn't quite as good Captain Kirk turned into a film lead pretty easily Captain Picard not as much right like the TNG translation to film

[01:12:14] really didn't work very well most of the time yeah it has its moments and financially it had its moments but the character of Jean-Luc Picard the captain is a different character completely in the films yeah and I can watch this film and see the Michael Kelly character Mike November you know that character is more engaging on the show and it feels like they're kind of like tossing in some quips from him but

[01:12:43] he doesn't really get things that are particularly interesting to do but like you can just feel that there is a chemistry between him and John Krasinski that's not being kind of showcased no there's clearly something going on there not romantically but like a good buddy cop thing they have going on and I'm that's the energy I get from their relationship I mean

[01:13:13] he's the only person that's mildly funny yeah he has that save with the crane at the end though I thought was pretty badly shot yeah it didn't look great didn't look great I would like to note to you have two of the leads of this movie are both workers in the Daily Planet because you have Wendell Pierce plays Perry working with Lawrence Fishburne in the Snyder verse Superman films I see

[01:13:43] now okay yeah yeah are you saying that Jack Carr is in the DCEU um I guess so Jack Carr Jack Carr did it again Jack Ryan there are a lot of Jacks and a lot of cars not of Ryan's Jack Ryan is in the DCEU so it would seem I that's true he has indeed wasn't here

[01:14:13] no and it's like when I see something like this and the actors aren't really connecting you mentioned the villain earlier right like these are all capable actors who we've seen be dynamic other things and so that's what I go it's a problem with the script here it's a problem with this story as conceived and the way they are executing it that is it's taking away from these actors who clearly people enjoy and have been incredible or you know really connected with audiences in other

[01:14:42] roles in other projects I think the other one that's kind of interesting is the Sienna Miller character I think she's a bit of a quirky oddball in this film has some idiosyncrasies that are interesting but I think there's meant to be a little bit of a romantic tension with him with her and John Krasinski and I don't particularly feel that it's tough because she has a little bit of an acidic sense of humor there's a little bit of edge

[01:15:12] to her but I feel like she's talking my language but I feel like the characters she's bouncing off of are a push-pull but they're built out of granite especially

[01:15:42] the Jack Ryan character in this particular film and so you don't get that kind of playfulness there's no ambiguity with his character at all he is the all-American hero in this do you think they just wrote out his wife to have some sort of chemistry with Sienna Miller I think it was what you pitched originally that it was more contractual or time related but I'm

[01:16:12] sure the character that she's playing exists in the books somewhere probably because I think they said they just take from every Jack Ryan story with this film and series I do you have any final notes I had some funny ones at least I thought they were funny this is going to be great folks strap in actually it was more of a question for you he's downgraded it already he does not think it's funny anymore

[01:16:43] I've built up too many expectations go on it was a question for you we see at the start of the movie Jack Ryan is jogging down the street and he has airpods in Scott what is Jack Ryan's running music well the Jack Ryan I'm presented in this film is pretty uncool is it yacht rock oh you think yacht rock huh yeah like it's got the

[01:17:13] tempo thing for running which is quite useful but like most people think yacht rock is for squares now I'll put a disclaimer on that I listen to the yacht rock and I imagine people listening to the show also listen to yacht rock I do not dislike yacht rockers I rock with you I rock harder than you sometimes or sometimes perhaps less but I feel like it's very much up his avenue like I'm sure Horn Oates is his most listened to artist on his

[01:17:43] 2026 Spotify playlist I could see that we know it's not Belinda Carlisle who there's a needle drop later and he seems a little bit eye rolling at yeah what songs do Horn Oates make I'm trying to think now oh you're gonna put me on the spot and it's like some incredibly famous song and I just sound like an idiot hemming and hawing but I don't remember to be honest with you it's not something I listen to Maneater

[01:18:13] Private yeah you make my dreams come true yeah it's all there oh that's that's the one I was thinking that that does sound like the song he's listening to I think that's probably it or like or wham like he's a full on wham guy like that I can see that but it sounds like you have a pitch no I don't at all I was just curious from you well I'm putting my stamp on it it's Yacht Rock or it's Wham but I want to hear from you folks let us know on the comments on Spotify

[01:18:42] or on YouTube or wherever you're listening what is Jack Ryan listening to I think the interesting question is what is Harrison Ford's Jack Ryan listening to uh hair metal you think so it's we're not gonna take it oh right okay I was thinking more like Metallica slightly later hair metal but okay like yeah I can't really see him rocking out to one he's a big Dee Snider fan okay uh

[01:19:12] if you said like it was Dio or something I could probably go with it or uh Bon Jovi maybe okay living on a prayer he wishes but I feel like his one day we have to compare all these Jack Jack Ryans because I think Harrison Ford's is a lot cooler okay right now no I disagree well he might be cooler than this one but I think like the coolest is gonna be the um the one from Shadow Recruit

[01:19:42] right is it I think it might be I'm not sure I don't think you could ever say Chris Pratt well Chris Pine was cool I feel like he might lean to have the more interesting musical taste oh I'm sure he listens to Harry Styles is that and the fact that that washed over cam means that's a popular current artist no I was like honestly thinking as you said that like does that make him cool I don't know I think it does like

[01:20:11] yeah if they're listening to like Charlie XCX it means they're pretty cool I guess I don't listen to them I'm so old I'm so old Scott it's tragic well Harry Styles has a new album out like it's pretty current you know Dua Lipa I don't know sure but in my in my mind that's like teenagers listening to that oh okay so what's what's cool music that older people are listening to I wish I knew they've just gotten into Nirvana I think actually that's the new thing oh okay okay

[01:20:41] yeah that's the hot new band I actually saw like three Nirvana shirts today with people I'm like I mean Kurt Cobain's been dead for like 30 years yeah but you see people wearing like vintage rock shirts all the time no but like three on a day like back to back was a bit weird well I think it's because like they sell them at like Walmart and stuff like that yeah the band is giving their logo to everything so yeah okay but

[01:21:10] then I feel like we started something we haven't finished it like who is the coolest Jack Ryan you think it's Chris Pine I'm gonna lean towards Chris Pine I think it might be Ben Affleck okay not a bad pick not a bad pick we want to hear from you who is the coolest Jack Ryan it's not about who's the best because you can you know if you've read the books the Tom Clancy novels I'm sure you have a very strong opinion about which actor inhabited it the best we want to know who the coolest Jack Ryan is yeah

[01:21:39] or maybe the uncoolest who's the closest to us exactly yeah yes anymore I I had another note they do the die hard trick of the fire extinguisher that you throw down the hallway and then shoot at someone not done as well no although that is a another one of those things they just like to pull out a lot now in action sequences yeah yeah the other note I had in the last one at one point they introduced Colonel Jones who comes in he's on I think that base

[01:22:09] the RAF base and they're like which is Abingdon in the film which is not Abingdon but it's also used in Force Awakens right okay oh yeah that's right right but anyways they introduce him and they're like he's here to help us and I'm like okay cool and in my head I'm like this character is someone probably from the show perhaps it's a cameo no it's not it's actually a character who's original to this film sure and I could not really understand how he helped them

[01:22:39] I mean he pretended to be the other guy when they snuck out it seemed like a lot of legwork for setting up a very like minor contribution to the story and they and they brought some royal marines along for the the attack at the end yeah because they were on the plane with them yeah but yeah I know what you mean it was just like a weird introduction because it's one thing to say okay we've got marine contacts we're gonna get you help great done line of exposition versus like standing this

[01:23:08] Colonel Jones guy there where you're like well he's clearly gonna pay off in some way and that's debatable hey I feel more like the Colonel Jones than anything else we're all Colonel Jones we are all Colonel Joneses in someone else's Jack Carr story I did Jack Carr again Jack Ryan for goodness sake we should have a little bing going on along for me mixing up Jack Ryan and Jack Carr because I've spoken to him recently that's all it is

[01:23:39] I'm still thinking about who's the coolest Jack Ryan that's gonna haunt me for a while but no I'm trying to think you look a ghost oh yeah I've got nothing else to really say about the film which is sad but honest yeah I didn't have any like major notes I mentioned the fact I was there with some of the filming I can't really think of anything else that jumps out in terms of a sequence that I found interesting

[01:24:08] it just is what it is that's the frustrating thing to me the helicopters are coming they're coming to get me Jack Ryan is coming to get me that's the frustrating thing about this movie which was that I knew I could just tell that I was gonna forget everything that happened in this movie like it feels forgettable while you're watching it and it's like telling like on IMDB there's only like four images of the film yeah and the only trivia is that it's the only ever R-rated film other than Patriot Games

[01:24:39] right that's it yeah and like the thing is there's lots of movies we've covered over the years on this show that have proven to be forgettable but they didn't feel like it when you were watching it no that's the difference no I like I was mentioning about eating the beige earlier like you choose to eat beige that's what you fancy I wasn't I was in the mood for beige when I sat down to watch this film and so I was probably expecting a bit more and I said at

[01:25:09] the start maybe my expectation should have been lower but it wasn't I suppose the only other note I would add I haven't watched it on my TV at home but watching it on a big screen didn't do anything for it right yeah in fact there is a sequence in London in Trafalgar Square where they've clearly like not even like rotoscoped almost it looks that bad Greer into the sequence and he has like a fuzz

[01:25:38] around him as a person where you just know they've blended the image and I looked over at Chris and just I kind of gave him a look he's a director of films and he was like like he could see it everyone could see it and it yeah I mean I feel quite unique in the sense I'm one of the only people to actually watch it on a big screen probably ever will be one of the only people to ever watch it on a big screen but I do not think this like it's not like kpop demon hunters it's going to do really well on streaming and then get a

[01:26:08] theatrical release in two months time this is not ever going to be seen on screens again no whereas I think if you did like a retrospective of hunt for red october or patriot games people would show up no I you're 100% right yeah yeah but it's time for the knock list that's right the need to see official classics of spy hearts podcast our list if you're new to the show and you've

[01:26:38] made it this far I mean you're clinically insane congratulations welcome to the insane asylum like the rest of us it's our list of the need to see spy movies the ones that we and there's been some greats that have made the list but this is the first time we're talking about Jack Ryan films it's the first time Jack Ryan's getting a shot at the list Cam over to you yes or no

[01:27:08] is it making the knock list I'm really sorry guys this was our introduction to Jack right on the podcast but think of the hills we can climb like we are gonna go upwards it's all uphill from here in my mind so no TCJRGW is not making the knock list I might call it that social media TCJRGW that's right I love that that's great no Tom Clancy's Jack

[01:27:38] Ryan Ghost War is a no from me too it has nothing to offer like a skeleton it is bereft of meat on its bones yeah that was good give me props for that yes yes props golf clap thank you it's just like it you want to have strong filmmaking to pull that off but

[01:28:07] the problem here is that there's no tension and there's no sense of suspense there's no kind of like sure this may feel like a little bit formulaic but you can have the audience feel like they're being pulled into something that has characters who feel like they are in a tense situation I hope for them to come back on screen like the poochie

[01:28:37] everyone should be talking about poochie there's no poochie here folks he's gone back to his home planet yeah and even like the Mike November character who I didn't think really worked in this film it CJR GW is not making the knock list the film

[01:29:07] is complete and filed as classified and that was our first Jack Ryan film in the bag yes yes it was yes it was now Cam I'll ask you this question what are we talking about next week we are taking on 1989's Brenda Starr starring Brooke Shields and Timothy Dalton based on the long long running comic series not these days but Brenda Starr was once upon a time an icon

[01:29:37] in the comic strips and they made a movie about it that movie it had a lot of problems along the way the story about the movie is almost more interesting than the movie itself but you know what the movie is still pretty interesting and next week we are going to take it on it one of those like wait that movie exists kind of movie like it just feels like it's a forgotten relic and we're going to unearth that jewel polish it up real nice and present it

[01:30:25] should you choose to accept it is to join us next week as we take a look at Brenda Starr a forgotten Timothy Dalton spy movie around the same time of him doing Bond sounds interesting to me what's the worst that could happen oh there's only one way to find out and if you like what you heard on this episode please consider joining us over on the patreon think about what we suffered for you to listen and watch this film I mean I

[01:31:12] club as I like to call it and over 100 bonus episodes too you can't go wrong that's right and you think the Tom Clancy library is growing by the day you should be checking out the library of episodes over on the patreon and you know what I mentioned the daily planet earlier we have episodes on the first three Superman films tune in

[01:31:42] so maybe that could go well what's the worst that could happen indeed and of course join us over on social media at spy hearts wherever you get your social media you'll find us doing some sort of nonsense trying to go viral for no reason whatsoever other than to have some fun over on all of the social media apps but until next time folks when it comes to Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan ghost war frankly I can't go for that