Great Action Movie, Ben Affleck Not Badby reno_reviewer

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March 17, 2009: I am a fan of the original Tom Clancy novel, which this movie largely deviates from. However, where doing so negatively impacted the narrative in earlier Jack Ryan films Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, this one does it without compromising the story. Sure, some characters and situations get swapped around, mostly due to drastic world-view changes in the 12 year gap between book and film (replace an American Indian Movement fighter, radical Muslims, and volunteer East German scientists with a European neo-Nazi politician, corrupt Russian officials, and kidnapped Russian scientists, etc.), but the basic premise of the United States at a de facto state of war with Russia over bureaucratic posturing and a crisis mentality is still intact.

In a reboot of the Ryanverse from the previous three films, Ben Affleck is Jack Ryan, at this point in time an up-and-coming analyst at the CIA, dealing mostly with surveilling the Russian government. When Alexander Nemerov suddenly becomes the new Russian president, his hard-line stance on military affairs worries the American government. Director of Central Intelligence William Cabot (Morgan Freeman) seeks Ryan's opinion on matters dealing with Nemerov, as he has extensively researched Nemerov's life, and subsequently brings him on a state-sponsored visit to Russia to meet the new President and tour a nuclear weapons facility.

Both Cabot and Ryan notice that three scientists from said facility are missing. Facility directors make excuses for their absence, but a source inside the Kremlin, code-named Spinnaker, reveals that their whereabouts are unknown. Cabot sends CIA agent John Clark after them, who finds them working in the Ukraine building a bomb for Austrian neo-Nazi Richard Dressler. The bomb components, specifically the nuclear core, come from a single American-made nuclear missile that was lost during the 1973 Yom Kippur War when the Israeli jet carrying it was shot down (this sequence was shown during the opening credits); Dressler had bought the bomb on the black market after it was recovered by entrepreneurial Syrians in the present day.

Meanwhile, Russian forces gas the capital of Chechnya, Grozny, apparently on orders from Nemerov. While Ryan vehemently defends Nemerov, the Russian president publicly announces he was responsible, thus beginning a strain on US-Russian relations and making Ryan a laughingstock. At around the same time, Dressler's bomb arrives on American soil, with the intent to make the US and Russia fight and destroy each other.

When I first watched this movie, I really enjoyed it, not knowing at the time it had anything to do with Tom Clancy's novels. I've since read quite a few of them, but still find this film enjoyable. Ben Affleck is not bad in his turn as Ryan, but he's not great either. Morgan Freeman as usual delivers a great performance. The other actors who play the Russian and American politicians I believe accurately portray the anger and bravado that would bubble to the surface if a real version of this scenario were to occur. It kind of makes you scared that complete annihilation from nuclear weapons could so easily happen, similar to what War Games did in 1983.

While not a great movie, the action is intense, which is what action movies are supposed to have. Great tension, some effective camerawork mixed with appropriate musical pieces, and an interesting plot all help make the movie...

horrid filmby Anonymous

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April 11, 2007: i thought this film needed a new director and actor but it was an okay movie to reboot the series