Jack Ryan, the series: very American action and espionage entertainment

Jack Ryan has been with us for several decades, changing faces without leaving his post at the CIA.

The character Tom Clancy created for his novels has been played on the big screen by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and Chris Pine, with mixed results, though a solid overall record. 

Of all of them, Harrison Ford is probably still the actor most people associate with the character, thanks to Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger.

Until now.

Because Amazon went all in and put together a proper four-season series and—so far—one additional film.

Both the series and the film star John Krasinski, best known for The Office, although he had already proved in A Quiet Place that he could handle roles outside comedy.

The result is a very easy-to-watch action and espionage series, with magnificent production values, strong supporting actors and enough travel, chases and conspiracies to keep you entertained through all four seasons. 

It does, however, have a couple of major problems that stop it from becoming a truly great series. Here is why.

The plot of the Jack Ryan series

Jack Ryan begins the series as a CIA financial analyst. 

His job is to study money movements and detect possible threats from behind a desk, but he has a particular gift for spotting connections no one else seems to see.

As you can imagine, it does not take him long to swap the computer for field operations.

From there, each season presents a different international conspiracy, although they all follow a similar structure: Jack discovers something worrying, tries to convince his superiors and ends up travelling halfway around the world to prevent a catastrophe.

More specifically, the first season begins with suspicious bank transfers that lead to a terrorist organisation operating across the Middle East, Europe and the United States.

In the second, Jack travels to Venezuela to investigate an arms-related operation and ends up caught in a political and military plot surrounding the country’s government.

The third revolves around a plan intended to trigger a war and restore some of the influence of the former Soviet empire.

Finally, the fourth season has Ryan investigate a possible link between South American drug trafficking and Asian terrorism, strengthened by internal corruption.

The seasons are independent in terms of their main threats, but the characters and their relationships evolve. That is why it is best to watch them in order, although you do not need to memorise every name, government or organisation that appears.

The best of Jack Ryan

With the premise of the series in mind, let us look at the best it has to offer.

It is a very entertaining series

The greatest strength of Jack Ryan is how effortlessly watchable it is.

The episodes have pace, the plots are easy to follow without taxing your memory and there is almost always an operation, chase or new discovery pushing the story forward. Some seasons work better than others, but in general it is easy to press play and then realise you have watched two or three episodes in a row.

It is also pure entertainment in the best sense of the word: it does not try to teach you world geopolitics, only what you need to follow the plot. That limits the depth of some arcs, as we will see later, but it also makes the series very accessible.

In case you were wondering, you do not need to have read Tom Clancy’s novels or seen the previous films to enjoy it fully, because this version builds its own Jack Ryan from scratch.

A top-level production

The series constantly moves between very different cities, countries and settings.

There are military operations, embassies, political meetings, rural areas, major capitals and action scenes with an ambition closer to commercial cinema than to traditional television. 

In fact, this brutal contrast occasionally came to mind when I compared Spanish series such as Los Serrano or El Comisario with what I was seeing on screen, and I was struck by the enormous difference despite all of them being made for television.

You will find magnificent exterior locations here, and they are used well. The series conveys a real sense of travel and gives each season a clear geographical identity.

That said, there is one detail—very common in current productions, by the way—that I do not quite like: the use of a fairly pronounced grey filter that desaturates the colours and makes the settings look somewhat uniform.

It does not ruin the cinematography, but I do think it is a little excessive and artificial.

And that is despite the image quality of the series on Prime Video being absolutely excellent. In 4K, it is especially rewarding in the locations, landscapes and lighting of a production that has clearly spent its money well.

James Greer and a highly charismatic lead team

James Greer is the best character in the series. Whenever he appears, the story becomes more interesting.

Wendell Pierce, the tremendous actor who plays him, gives him authority and presence that require no action scenes to command respect. Greer can be Jack’s mentor, superior, partner or problem depending on the moment, and he is very good in every one of those roles.

He also feels like a more believable character than the protagonist. He makes mistakes, has physical limitations, carries problems with him and knows that intelligence work often means choosing between shades of grey.

One step below him is Mike November, played by Michael Kelly. The character is not there from the beginning, but it does not take long for him to become an important part of the team.

Kelly also provides a comic counterpoint that is well integrated in his early appearances. Mike November has experience, contacts and a special ability to accept absurd situations without losing his sense of humour. This side of him is exaggerated somewhat near the end of the series, but the character remains charismatic.

It is also interesting to see Michael Kelly in a role so far removed from Doug Stamper, the dark, almost funereal character he played in House of Cards.

The rest of the group also helps the series work. Jack may be the protagonist, but Greer, November, Elizabeth Wright—the big boss for a while—and the various agents who accompany them each season bring variety to the operations, preventing all the weight from resting on good old Jack.

So he “only” handles 90% of the problem.

A great and charismatic cast.

The worst of Jack Ryan

I mentioned earlier that, although the series is not bad, there are things I did not like. These are the main ones:

John Krasinski never quite works for me as Jack Ryan

John Krasinski acts well. The problem is that I have never fully seen him as Jack Ryan.

He has too much of a nice-guy face and retains an overly idealistic air that is difficult to reconcile with someone who has lived through wars, attacks, betrayals, torture and all kinds of covert operations.

Perhaps part of the problem is physical or perhaps it is hard to separate the actor from his other characters, but he does not always convey the wear and tear Ryan should have accumulated after everything he goes through.

The series tries to present him as an ordinary man who would rather work from an office, even though every season has to prove that he is also an extraordinary field agent. He runs, shoots, fights, flies, defuses bombs, survives and makes decisions under pressure better than almost everyone around him.

Krasinski does what the script asks of him, but the combination of actor and character never quite convinces me.

An overly perfect protagonist in an overly accommodating world

And beyond that nice-guy face that never entirely rings true for a character like Jack Ryan, he is simply too much of everything.

He is too clever, too capable at every kind of task and too correct in his decisions.

He almost always spots the threat before everyone else, is usually right when he argues with his superiors and keeps an almost perfectly intact moral compass. Bad things happen to him, but he has hardly any weaknesses that truly shape his decisions or lead him to make serious mistakes.

This reduces the tension, because you know Jack will find a solution even when the situation looks difficult.

And of course, when you combine Jack Ryan’s incredible competence at everything with the fact that many enemy soldiers shoot worse than the stormtroopers from Star Wars, it is hard not to lose your suspension of disbelief.

It is a common convention in action cinema, but it happens so often here that it reinforces the feeling that you are watching an adventure closer to James Bond than to a remotely realistic intelligence operation.

An overly simple political vision

And if Jack is idealistic and perfect, the political ideology surrounding the series is even more so.

The good guys are very good—almost all of them—and the bad guys are extremely bad—all of them.

Jack Ryan talks about terrorism, corruption, coups, arms trafficking, drug trafficking and covert operations, but almost never questions the role of the United States harshly enough.

The CIA makes mistakes and corrupt people appear within the system. However, the solution usually depends on a group of honest agents cleaning up the institution from within. The problem is always a few people—bad apples—never the wider system.

This is especially noticeable in the final season, whose plot offered an excellent opportunity to be more critical of US policy and the activities of its agencies, but the series never really explores it.

It also does not help that foreign governments and organisations are often presented far more simply than the American characters. As I said, they are simply very, very bad people you would never empathise with in the slightest.

Verdict: is Jack Ryan worth watching?

Jack Ryan is recommended as entertainment. It has good pacing, action, magnificent locations and a highly charismatic lead team. 

The problem appears if you try to watch it as an espionage or political series. Then you will be disappointed.

Do not expect the moral ambiguity and personal toll of The Americans, the deeply flawed agents of Slow Horses or the cold, patient and distrustful espionage of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

This series is playing a different game. Although Jack is supposedly an analyst, it is closer to James Bond or Mission: Impossible, with global threats, extraordinarily capable heroes and spectacular operations in which action matters far more than credibility.

With that in mind, it works. It keeps you entertained for four seasons and is well made enough for you to forgive many of its exaggerations.

You simply have to accept that Jack Ryan is both the CIA’s best analyst and its best field agent, living in a world where the good guys always shoot better.

Jack Ryan technical details

Field	Information
Title	Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan
Original title	Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan
Years aired	2018–2023
Seasons	4
Episodes	30
Creators	Carlton Cuse and Graham Roland
Main cast	John Krasinski, Wendell Pierce, Michael Kelly, Abbie Cornish, Betty Gabriel, Noomi Rapace, Ali Suliman and Michael Peña
Genre	Action, thriller and espionage
Country	United States
Available on	Prime Video
Status	Ended
Rating	3 out of 5