Film.Music.Media - Jack Ryan by Ramin Djawadi

Review by Kaya Savas - October 16, 2018

While Ramin Djawadi has become the king of television with Game Of Thrones and Westworld, it’s surprising he was able to tackle on another series here with Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. While both Game Of Thrones and Westworld have offered up interesting canvasses for Djawadi’s thematic scoring, it seems with Jack Ryan we’ve found the music feeling more like wallpaper than anything else. Not wallpaper in the sense that it's wall-to-wall, just that it sits in the background.

Jack Ryan is Amazon’s attempt of finding something high-profile and “binge-able” much in the ways that Netflix and HBO are succeeding. But this is no The Man In The High Castle. With a lot of great talent onboard including Carlton Cuse as showrunner, one would think the score would be a bit more fleshed out. However the case here is a decent score that feels nice in the background. We start with a main title theme that feels like a rejected take on Ramin’s Westworld theme, and then by track 3 we’re already feeling some Thomas Newman temp hangover. What follows isn’t bad, it just doesn’t stand out. The music offers just enough for the show to get by. Jack Ryan’s character does get painted with a bit of patriotic heroism, and thankfully Ramin keeps that reserved so it never feels over the top. Another great thing the score does is it brings in some Middle Eastern flavors to help paint the setting, but definitely not in a stereotypical way. Although some of the generic percussion might feel a bit dated. What the score does great is create some exciting textured builds that are reminiscent of the Medal Of Honor games Ramin scored.

Jack Ryan has some great ingredients and is an overall entertaining listen, but it never pushes the boundaries to find its own unique voice. Jack Ryan is a safe score, a good score, but a safe one. We’ve seen Ramin do way more exciting things both in TV and in this genre, and in some cases this is the type of scoring some TV series need. This score operates nicely in the background and does just enough to fill in the world of the character. Don’t expect Jack Ryan to wow you or have any emotional resonance, but do expect to be thoroughly entertained.