“Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse” is a brutal, espionage actioner that side-steps the world-policing impulses of the source material with the help of phenomenal casting and some taut and dynamic action direction from Stefano Sollima.
Navy SEAL John Kelly (Michael B. Jordan) and team led by Karen Greer (Jodie Turner-Smith) return home from Aleppo to regroup after a routine CIA extraction turns into an international incident.
The diplomats, including Jamie Bell’s CIA black bagging stooge Robert Ritter and Guy Pearce’s DOJ Secretary Clay, attempt to mediate the fallout while Kelly’s whole unit is soon assassinated.
Kelly survives, but is critically injured before he’s able to save the life of his pregnant wife and unborn child. As he rehabilitates, he goes rogue to obtain information about those responsible and negotiates – with extreme prejudice – for a government-backed, covert reprisal.
Sollima, the man behind “Suburra” and “Sicario: Day of the Soldado,” is a filmmaker worth paying attention to. Despite the dubious philosophical shift between “Sicario” and “Soldado,” Sollima’s action direction was the key redeemable feature of an otherwise vastly inferior sequel.
“Without Remorse”, the second collaboration between Sollima and writer Taylor Sheridan (co-writing with Will Staples), is superior in every way. This time he expresses character and pathos through action. Balletic tactical manoeuvres snaking through dilapidated Aleppo buildings show cohesion and connection between Greer and Kelly’s tight crew.
Kelly is interrupted by assassins in his pyjamas and picks them off like he could do it in his sleep. When the government orders inaction to stamp out brewing international discord, Kelly’s fury is expressed with fire – single-handedly smashing a diplomatic convoy – demanding information in the last gasps of life.
When a high stakes mission to capture the surviving assassin and the orchestrator of this chaos suffers a catastrophic setback, Sollima orchestrates an air-crash turned underwater set-piece, making the audience hold their breath with Kelly (Jordan) and feel the increasing pressure.
It’s a barrage of authentic action set-pieces that flex a grounded and authentic style. Swelling waves and percussive beats define Jonsi’s synthetic score – if you’ve got a great sound system, it will make your ears feel like they need to pop.
Sheridan’s entire scripting oeuvre so far express a profoundly conflicting world view. If “Sicario” is tormented by the manipulative ways of the U.S intelligence apparatus in the drug war, “Soldado” relishes in it.
“Without Remorse” acknowledges the hypocrisy and the CIA turning nations into warring gangs, but Kelly’s relentless drive for revenge keeps it on track – charting a middle ground between “Bourne” and “Wick”.
One assumes co-writer Staples helped to pace the increasingly daring levels of action as well as existential self-reflection essential to the character. If soldiers can see how morally and ethically bankrupt the military is, why do they fight?
Michael B. Jordan is precisely the performer and physical specimen to bring Kelly to life. He’s a soldier who needs his orders to fit into his prescribed view of the U.S military, and their interventions must make sense.
From chaotic manipulation of the opening mission, Kelly is ill-tempered, uncomfortable in his pawn position. Once tragedy befalls Kelly, Jordan’s compelling fury helps to overcome any narrative shortcomings. The more Jordan is allowed to react to the chaos he instigates or is entangled in, the better both his performance and the film is.
Jodie Turner-Smith is magnetic and centered as Karen Greer. Greer must follow orders to maintain her hard-earned position of influence and the actress has the talent to convey that her position as a woman of colour in this apparatus requires delicacy.
Jamie Bell shows his versatility once again as Ritter. Bell’s evergreen and youthful face has the requisite amount of make-up or prescribed sleep deprivation to constantly reinforce that this CIA “company man” will tirelessly execute on the mysterious, geo-political shenanigans of the intelligence apparatus. He follows orders but leaves you questioning his allegiances.
The cohesion between the passage of time between the initial attempts on Kelly’s life/recovery and the next phase of the film feels curtailed to address the pace in ways that the opening or later stages of the film don’t. Some films cast their “surprise” villains intentionally to subvert surprise (ala Henry Cavill in “Mission: Impossible – Fallout”).
In the case of “Without Remorse”, one wonders whether certain choices intended to do the same. Take the incredibly rough ending for example which plays far easier if you consider the ubiquity of ongoing cinematic universes and sequel setups. The film is worth starting for the gripping star quality of Jordan and Turner-Smith, and staying for the action direction of Sollima.
