cinemajesty Movie Review: "Patriot Games" (1992)Paramount Pictures switches leading actors from Alec Baldwin to Harrison Ford as further designated as from the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) acclaimed character of Jack Ryan, who must turn to action from in a viciously-executed terror attack on the Prince of Wales and his wife in mid-town London, when this highly-atmospheric suspense thriller based on a book from 1987 written by Tom Clancy (1947-2013) putting a microscopic as political view on a homeland-threatening "war-on-terror" theme outgoing from heart-breaking personal retaliation mission by the fulminate cast nemesis-character of Sean Miller, performed by Sean Bean in fully-engaging action beating manners, accelerating the picture directed by Phillip Noyce into patriotic chase from at that time remaining splinter cells of Irish Republican Army (IRA), who fought the Irish War on Independence from the British ruling United Kingdom (UK) for more then 50 years in the aftermath of World-War-1 (1914-1918)."Patriot Games" remains an Hollywood entertainment movie of the highest order, open for revisits under the restriction that any audience shall be advised to do some research in the now more or less resolved British-Irish conflict since an formally-received announcement in 2005, when suspense takes two peaks in a highway car-raging chase of family murder attempts and night-vision raid on U.S. American soil, where Miller's brother-avenging, ultra-advanced trained and geared death squad stealth-sneaks into never-seen-before conservative home of CIA-analyst Jack Ryan and his loving wife, portrayed by match-making actress Anne Archer, put to defend herself violently, when the message of "Patriot Games" becomes what the United States stand for since their own declaration of independence from the British Empire on July 4th, 1776.© 2018 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

leplatypus My explanation is easy : i tried to read the book twice and put it down twice. The first time i just didn't buy the unbelievable safety of the royals ! the second time i just get bored by Ryan's recovery. The movie is thus the wise choice because it took only 2 hours and as it's a revenge and action story the visual is the accurate medium for that instead of endless pages… In addition, you got wonderful British and Maryland location. For sure Harrison is the perfect choice because he has the humanity and the broad shoulders to be this superman ! For a Clancy novel, the international crisis is left away but it's his first dig about the stealth commando : in that field, we have again more unbelievable things as they easily follow the trail in Africa (compare it to another track !). Maybe it's was the first time that people was briefed about what can surveillance do and already nobody was asking the legitimacy about administrative offices ordering death abroad without judicial review. Maybe Clancy has answered that but to get his opinion, i suppose i should read the book….

AaronCapenBanner Philip Noyce directed this adaptation of the Tom Clancy novel that now stars Harrison Ford as CIA Analyst Jack Ryan, who is vacationing with his wife(played by Anne Archer) and daughter(played by Thora Birch) in England when he helps thwart an assassination attempt, killing one of the terrorists whose brother(played by Sean Bean) belongs to a splinter IRA group, and vows revenge against Jack and his family. Jack then goes to the CIA and his old Boss Admiral Greer(played by James Earl Jones) for help, as a wider conspiracy is being uncovered against the royal family. Richard Harris, Patrick Bergin, and Hugh Fraser costar. Worthy second entry in the series is both exciting and well-cast, with Ford a most effective older version of Jack(8 years after the first film.)

ElMaruecan82 Harrison Ford is Jack Ryan, a former CIA agent, coming to London for a conference in British Naval Academy, only to find himself in the middle of a terrorist ambush against a distant cousin of the Royal Family. Well, what do you know, he successfully disarms the terrorists, killing in the process the 17-year old brother of Sean Miller (Sean Bean), while the others manage to escape. Ryan instantly makes it to the top of Miller's enemy list and we understand it's only a matter of time before we get a hand-to-hand confrontation.The time is 100 minutes during which Philp Noyce's "Patriot Games" fulfills every premise of an action/thriller: the bad guy's escape, the cowardly attack on Ryan's wife and daughter, a failed (but alarming) one on Ryan, and a cat-and-mouse chase via such exciting tools as political surveillance, mug shots, satellites and glimpses of memory. And after having initially declined the offer, Ryan finally accepts to get back to the CIA (all it took was to measure up how serious the threat against his family was). These are predictable elements meaning to provide the perfect dosage of adrenalin and suspense but what makes them work is the 'intelligence' involved in Ryan's quest for Miller, making him more of a thinker than a typical physical hero. The script insists enough on Ryan's expertise as an analyst.And there is the whole political back-story, as if the so-called "Patriot Games" were not without rules, one of them being an understandable yet redundant bit of correctness. Basically, Noyce is extremely careful on depicting the villainous group as an independent and more fanatic branch of the Irish Republican Army lead by O'Donnell (Patrick Bergin) who was part of the initial attack. It's comprehensible for a film with international ambitions to play on the safe side not to lose the Irish audience, but we get the point more than needed. One of the IRA leaders is brutally killed in his bed, by O'Donnell's sexy girlfriend (Polly Walker) and the same O'Donnell kills a friend at short range, so the distance between the IRA and the bad guys is clearly and categorically established. Yet did these precautions matter? For all the political context the script provides, it all leads up to the 'personal' story between Miller and Ryan, Miller who didn't give a damn about fighting for Ireland as soon as his brother hit the ground. Did it also matter when the portrayal of Arabs was more careless? After all, just put your terrorists in any desert camp in 'North Africa' (no need to specify the exact location), throw a name like Gaddafi (Saddam works sometimes) and that's it. I was glad there wasn't any character wearing a red Saudi top hat and shouting some Arab gibberish, to provide the little touch of authenticity. As usual, it's a camp in Libya and like all the camps in Libya, the one that welcomed the bad guys had to be bombed (recent events proved that reality could go that far).Still, it was a nice touch to show the perplexed face of Harrison Ford, during the camp's bombing, looking from infrared screens, wounded 'terrorist' dragging their way out from fire. His reaction to one of the young upstarts uttering an enthusiastic "Now, that's a kill" while sipping coffee, says it all, the man has gotten soft, which means in our language, more 'human' and we understand how his 'family' lifestyle turned him into a thinker. And this is the sympathetic little twist "Patriot Games" gives us, a different Harrison Ford character, sweeter, gentler, only using force in case of necessary defense. In one of the film's boldest moves, he's prevented from a certain death by a Naval guard. This shows how vulnerable he truly is and how even his determination isn't enough to avoid the worst. Another effective moment consisted on a shot on his face while he stares at a thick cloud of smoke coming from the freeway, indicating that a car (not any car) had crashed. This is certainly one of the film's most haunting moments as you can read the desperation of a man who realizes that his loved ones are also part of these damn games (although you wonder why they planned to kill him since killing his family and letting him live with that would have been enough a revenge) "Patriot Games" doesn't bring much freshness to the genre but surprisingly offers a hero who's not your typical cynical macho guy, with marital troubles. Ryan has a beautiful and devoted wife. I could have said that Anne Archer seemed to reprise her role from "Fatal Attraction", but the whole film borrows elements from Adrian Lyne's classic, like the car-accident, the big isolated family house, becoming ominous under a stormy night and the mandatory daughter.Indeed, like for every family in trouble, it's a girl that accentuates the defenselessness when family comedies have young boys who wish their daddies would spend more time with them. But Thora Birch manages to appear like a smart but not precocious girl. The whole 'family' vibes feeling is clearly palpable all through the film, and it's pleasantly surprising how it is used even during the few exchanges with the intimidating James Earl Jones and Jack's buddy, played by a friendlier Samuel L. Jackson. Naturally, there is not much family feeling when the climax starts, especially when you got a fight in a speeding boat on fire about to hit rocks, a move that disappointed many Tom Clancy readers.Speaking for me, I've never read Clancy, never saw "Hunt for Red October" either (but I'm looking forward to seeing it) so all I had were reverse expectations, I thought I was going to see an action-packed movie starring a super-heroic Harrison Ford, and I was pleasantly surprised by how intelligent and family oriented he was. I guess I'm among the ones who see the half-full glass.