Remorse is all one gets from Tom Clancy fans piqued over Paramount’s decision to modernize the author’s 1993 adventure thriller. They complain that the updating bowdlerized the source material. It didn’t seem to bother the Clancy estate much; the check cleared and his name is in the title. Three months after a top secret operation in Syria goes wrong, John Kelly (Michael B. Jordan) makes the executive transition from Navy SEAL to private security. It’s death by night vision photography when the Russian army, looking to even the score with Kelly, raids his home, and in the process takes out his wife and their unborn child. While avenging their deaths, Kelly uncovers a plot that could lead to the end of civilization as we know it. Given the lack of innovation on display, they might just as well have called it Michael B. Jordan’s Without Remorse, because the lead performance is the only thing of interest in what otherwise amounts to one long series of setups. We open in mid-action, with screenwriters Taylor Sheridan and Will Staples reassuring us that the guy they’re asking us to spend two hours with has got what it takes. We then spend the next 80 minutes questioning his competency, only to have him emerge triumphant in the end. There’s a nice bit involving a fight scene lit by rolling Maglite and good support from Jodie Turner-Smith and Jamie Bell, the latter introduced in such an obviously repugnant manner that there’s no way that he’ll turn out to be the real villain in the piece. Available on Amazon Prime. (2021) — Scott Marks
This movie is not currently in theaters.