Having been a little disappointed with the previous Jack Ryan film, Patriot Games, I wasn’t very eager to see the next
installment when it hit the screens. At the time, I was working in a theater, so I had free access to every showing. I
didn’t watch it. Several months later when it was released on VHS, I was working in a video store and could have
rented it (free) at any given point in time. I still didn’t watch it. No, it was not until the initial 1998 barebones DVD
release that I first saw Clear And Present Danger. Ten years later, the jury is still out on this one for me.
For the most part, it’s a pretty good movie: there are some wonderful action scenes, the script appears to be fairly well
written (the adaptation of Clancy’s novel is a lot better than the last film, too), and the actors submit some truly grand
performances… but nevertheless, I always… seem to… get lost… with this… movie.
Maybe it’s that two hour twenty-one minute running time that does me in each and every time. Or maybe it’s all the
jumping around from sub-plot to sub-plot. It shouldn’t be either of the two, though: I’m quite adept at sitting through
long films with multiple sub-plots.
Ah! Wait, I know what it is (it just hit me): every damn time I try to watch this movie, it’s after I’ve just watched The
Hunt For Red October and Patriot Games! I’m burned out on Jack-fucking-Ryan, that’s the problem! Ha, ha!
Mystery solved!
OK… backing up… starting over. Ahem.
Clear And Present Danger is a pretty good movie. There, that pretty much covers it.
When Ryan’s mentor, Admiral Greer (James Earl Jones) becomes deathly ill, Jack is appointed the new acting CIA
agent for the president (Donald Moffat, as the shadiest George Bush-like commander-in-chief since George W. Bush)
and his unscrupulous advisors (Henry Czerny and Harris Yulin). The president assigns Ryan to lead an investigation
into the murder of one of his close friends, who (it turns out) had close ties with a Columbian drug cartel (don’t they
all?). Soon Ryan is in the middle of a small clandestine war between the cartel and the CIA along with a very irate
Willem Dafoe.
For those of you keeping score, that’s the third and final appearance for James Earl Jones, with little Thora Birch a
largely unseen Anne Archer joining Harrison Ford in second place (along with Ted Raimi as a CIA analyst). Joaquim
de Almeida, Raymond Cruz, Benjamin Bratt, and even former Disney lead Dean Jones co-star in this political thriller.
Presentation
By far the better of the first three Ryan flicks on Blu-ray, Clear And Present Danger boasts an impressive-looking
1080p 2.35:1 transfer with a wonderful English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack. Additional, regular Dolby Digital 5.1
tracks are available in French and Spanish with Subtitles provided in English, English (SDH), French, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Extras
Like all of the other Jack Ryan movies on Blu-ray, Paramount has opted to forego creating all-new Special Features
and instead chosen to reuse the retrospective Featurette, Behind The Danger (26:34) from the 2003 Special Edition
DVD release. The only other Bonus Feature on this Blu-ray disc is the Theatrical Trailer (2:39), which (fortunately) is
presented in HD (the Featurette is shown in Standard Definition).
Considering all of the footage that was cut out (like most of Anne Archer’s scenes), you’d think that Phillip Noyce
could have dug up and presented some of them for this Blu-ray release. Maybe we’ll get a “Director’s Cut” another ten
years down the line or something… although I won’t hold my breath for it.
Frown.
The Bottom Line
It’s not a very faithful adaptation (again), but it should keep non-Clancy fans at bay.
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