This is the third of the Jack Ryan films and the only one of the four to have any kind of continuity with any of the other films. It follows closely on the heels of Patriot Games and uses much of the same cast and crew as that film did. Finally it seemed that Paramount was willing to establish some kind of a franchise with stability on the popular Tom Clancy character. While this was still not as good as Hunt For Red October, it is easily superior to any of the other Ryan sequels. Harrison Ford is put to far better use here and he finally appears comfortable in the skin of Ryan. The film requires many huge leaps in logic, making it less believable than, perhaps, Patriot Games, but the action mixed with a generous amount of suspense makes this a rather fun and interesting story to watch.

There are an incredible number of characters on both sides of the fence to keep track of in this film, making it a little hard to keep up at times. You have: Ryan (Ford), Greer (Jones), Clark (Dafoe), Ritter (Czemy) , Escobedo (Sandoval) , NSA Director Cutter (Yulin), Felix Cortez (Almeida), Ryan’s wife (Archer), Moira (Mangnuson), FBI Director Jacobs (Tammi) and the list goes on. The plot, however, is a pretty good one. CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Ford) takes over as Director of Covert Ops for the Company when his mentor Greer is stricken with cancer. The President, upset over the slaughter of a friend’s family by the Escobedo drug cartel, launches a covert military operation of which Ryan is unaware. Ryan meanwhile has promised Congress under oath that no such operations will be undertaken with money from an appropriations bill he went to Capitol Hill to fight for. When potential leaks make their operation a liability the President shuts it down, leaving the military officers on their own. Ryan is set up as the fall guy both for Congress and for the leader of the men left stranded in the field. He must risk his own life to rescue the abandoned soldiers and uncover the plot that traces all the way to the President. At first we’re rooting for these commandos as they take out major players in the drug cartels. The collateral damage starts to mount, however, and we are beginning to question the actions of politicians we soon learn are in bed with the very men they appear to be fighting. Finally whatever moral high ground remains vanishes as American troops are left to be tortured and killed to protect the men who placed them in harm’s way to begin with. The moral grey area of the film is actually its strength. I like it when a film can play both sides up to a certain point. It’s then up to our hero to unscramble the ambiguity and set things right, at least as right as they can be. The film also has more than its fair share of bad guys on both sides of the fence. Is the villain Escobedo (sound a little like someone else?), the drug lord? Or maybe the true villain is Felix Cortez, who is Escobedo’s consultant, who is working more angles than an octagon? Of course, you can’t have a worse group of black hats than the trio of American bigwigs that started the whole covert mess. Is it simply a case of good intentions gone badly? The film certainly allows you the luxury of thinking that way, at least for a while.

Harrison Ford has finally made the Ryan character his own. His acting skills are only enhanced here by some clever writing and an entire regiment of good actors and characters. James Earl Jones sees only limited time as Greer, but he makes the most out of every minute. Willem Dafoe is always great with nuanced characters. Here he’s a little more straightforward but solid nonetheless. Harris Yulin seems to play a lot of Presidential aides in his career, and this outing is a good reason why. He plays Cutter, the President’s Chief Of Staff, who is really the mastermind behind the plot. He’s played Joseph McCarthy to Gen. George Marshall throughout his career, counting more senators and military officers in his repertoire than almost any other actor.

Video

Clear And Present Danger is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Even though this is a few years more recent, this transfer does not stand up to Red October. You get the same AVC MPEG-4 codec but not the same results in this 1080p transfer. The bit rate is also a more respectable average 35 mbps. Colors are a bit more natural than they were in Patriot Games, but I still got the sense of being immersed in a fog at times. Black levels are again only fair. Where the film does begin to improve over the previous film is in the level of detail evident in some nicer locations. The jungle scenes showcase that natural color I was talking about, and while the transfer still suffers from some overexposure at times, it just fits more with this outside filming than it did the more close quarters sets of Patriot Games. The grain is more in line with what the film stock delivered as well.

Audio

The DTS HD 5.1 Master Lossless Audio track is a far cry from the DVD release. Here I got the bang for my buck I was expecting. James Horner delivers a solid accompaniment to the narrative using notes instead of words. It is here that the average 3.7 mbps bit rate makes all the difference in the world. Dialog comes through just fine, and everything appears to be placed where it should be. The firefights in Columbia are awesome. The bullets fly, and you’re going to have to resist that urge to duck. The real flaw here can be found in the sub range. Even with all of the things blowing up, I didn’t get much more than a peep out of my sub.

Special Features

Behind The Danger – Cast And Crew Interviews: Again, this is taken from the original DVD release and not updated to HD. It’s a 26 minute collection of interviews and some behind the scenes footage.

Final Thoughts

I like this film a lot, just not as much as Hunt For Red October. Still, this film represented for me hope for a solid franchise. I think we all expected a quick return of Ford as Ryan. Instead Paramount seriously dropped the ball and let the franchise slip away into insignificance. Sum Of All Fears was exactly what the title suggested. Our greatest fear for Jack Ryan had been realized. Just when they got it right, someone decided it was time to reboot or reimagine the series. If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it is an axiom Hollywood has

never seemed to quite grasp. For just a moment, this Blu release allows us to go back to that time in the mid 90’s when there was still hope. You’ve got to pick this one up before they find a way to mess even this up. “I’m not telling you. I’m asking you.”