I guess working with Sylvester Stallone is like a time machine. Michael B. Jordan, fresh off the Creed sets, got punched back into the 1980s, and started looking for other 1980s Hollywood scripts to start making and starring in. Without Remorse is pretty much what you’d expect from 2021 Michael B. Jordan in a 1988 action movie: it’s got a great performance surrounded by the political theater of the Cold War we’ve been seeing for 30 years, which yields few surprises and so-so action for the audience.
Jordan plays John Kelly, a NAVY Seal brought into Aleppo, Syria to perform a shady rescue operation run by Deputy CIA Director Robert Ritter (Jamie Bell). Months later, members of Kelly’s team start getting taken out by secret military operatives, forcing Kelly back into active duty with the support of the Secretary of Defense (Guy Pearce) and the aid of his Lieutenant Commander Karen Greer (Jodie Turner-Smith). Their goal: find out who is ordering these secret assassinations and if there is any connection to the Russian Government.
Problems have a way of repeating themselves, generation to generation. Without Remorse is the movie encapsulation of most of those repetitions. Without Remorse’s start with the Tom Clancy of it all. After Jack Ryaning the movieworld into submission in the 90s, movie studios probably figured what the hell? Let’s run the Clancyverse back, but with John Kelly instead of Jack Ryan. Instead of the exhausted Vietnam backdrop of the book the movie moves up the time line to tell an almost equally familiar, exhausted Cold War paranoia thriller. The 2021 screenplay hits the beats of those 80s movies: ultra patriotic fighter questions loyalty after a shady military operation, suffers loss, recklessly goes back in, and slowly uncovers the truth of the conspiracy. Like the worst of the 80s version of those movies, these movies make it pretty clear who the double crossers are probably going to be, eliminating any surprise but making its political statement clear (though I’m curious in 2021 who people will think is the bad guy in real life). That means Without Remorse succeeds based on the success of its set pieces. I’ll give them this, our hero isn’t fallible here: John Kelly gets shot, stabbed, burned, etc, at least grounding the fighting in real life mortality. I wish one or two of these battles weren’t in pitch black darkness making the action really hard to follow, but the ones with some lighting can get pretty tense, especially ones involving the elements: air, wind, fire, and water.
Without remorse, the movie is happy it hitched a ride on the MBJ bandwagon. Michael B. Jordan proves how good of an actor he is in Without Remorse. Yes, obviously, he’s been amazing in Fruitvale Station, Black Panther, and other movies. But as one of my movie mantras goes: “a great actor makes a bad movie mediocre.” Jordan’s intensity alone elevates Without Remorse out of the trash heap, selling the hell out of some of the aiming for one liner dialogue he’s forced to deliver. The talented actor can warp who he is scene to scene effortlessly, going from cold blooded assassin to loving husband back to cold blooded in a matter of 20 minutes or so onscreen. Jodie Turner-Smith and Jamie Bell aren’t given a lot to do, but they command the screen the same way Jordan does when asked to. Everyone else isn’t around enough to leave a lasting impression, but usually it doesn’t matter too much because the Sexiest Man Alive is not too far away from the action.
In the current nostalgia swept movie landscape, Without Remorse might do all right. For anyone who grew up reading the latest Clancy novel or watched Harrison Ford navigate politics and war as Jack Ryan, Michael B. Jordan’s John Kelly will feel familiar and dutifully heroic. Should Amazon choose to make another one, let’s maybe go full 80’s action movie and give the bad guys a chance to do a little scenery chewing? Nothing hits those nostalgia feels like a wordy drunk on power bad guy monologue.