NOT FOR HONOR. NOT FOR COUNTRY. FOR HIS WIFE AND CHILD.
After averting an IRA attack on members of the royal family in London, and killing one of the terrorist’s brothers, CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford) becomes a marked man. The Ryan character, first introduced in The Hunt for Red October (1990), gets his own movie and a new star to play him. Ford oozes strength, honesty and integrity as the clean-cut hero, Sean Bean is equally good as the killer with a personal motive, but Anne Archer has to settle with a thankless wife part. Director Phillip Noyce delivers several heart-pounding action sequences (including the opening attack), which helps overshadow the implausible aspects of the script.
1992-U.S. 115 min. Color. Widescreen. Produced by Mace Neufeld, Robert Rehme. Directed by Phillip Noyce. Screenplay: W. Peter Iliff, Donald E. Stewart. Novel: Tom Clancy. Cast: Harrison Ford (Jack Ryan), Anne Archer (Cathy Ryan), Patrick Bergin (Kevin O’Donnell), Thora Birch, Sean Bean, Richard Harris… James Earl Jones, James Fox, Samuel L. Jackson.
Trivia: Alec Baldwin was initially supposed to have made a comeback as Jack Ryan after playing the character in The Hunt for Red October. Followed by Clear and Present Danger (1994).
Last word: “I’ll tell you one thing you really do appreciate about making a film on this level. I’ve made, what is it, six films now, and it took me just as much nervous energy to make the ones that weren’t seen by a lot of people as it did to make ‘Patriot Games’. All I’m saying is that I appreciate the machine’s ability to get a film in front of an audience. Being a part of that machine had certain limitations, but it has great compensations, too.” (Noyce, The Independent)
