Product Description

In CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, Harrison Ford returns as intrepid CIA agent Jack Ryan. When his mentor, Admiral Greer (Jones), becomes gravely ill, Ryan is appointed acting CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence. His first assignment: investigate the murder of one of the President's friends, a prominent U.S. businessman with secret ties to Colombian drug cartels. Unbeknownst to Ryan, the CIA has already dispatched a deadly field operative (Dafoe) to lead a paramilitary force against the Colombian drug lords. Caught in the crossfire, Ryan takes matters into his own hands, risking his career and life for the only cause he still believes in -- the truth.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15920 in DVD
• Brand: Paramount
• Released on: 2003-05-06
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 141 minutes

Amazon.com
The third installment in the cinematic incarnation of Tom Clancy's CIA analyst Jack Ryan and the second starring Harrison Ford, this follow-up to Patriot Games is a more complex, rewarding, and bolder film than its predecessor. Ford returns as Ryan, this time embroiled in a failed White House bid to wipe out a Colombian drug cartel and cover up the mess. The script, by Clancy and John Milius (Red Dawn), has an air of true adventure about it as Ryan places himself in harm's way to extract covert soldiers abandoned in a Latin American jungle. There are a couple of remarkable set pieces expertly handled by Patriot Games director Phillip Noyce, especially a shocking scene involving an ambush on Ryan's car in an alley. The supporting cast is superb, including Willem Dafoe as the soldiers' leader, Henry Czerny as Ryan's enemy at the CIA, Joaquim de Almeida as a smooth-talking villain, Ann Magnuson as an unwitting confederate in international crime, and James Earl Jones as Ryan's dying boss. The DVD release has a widescreen presentation, theatrical trailer, closed captioning, optional French soundtrack, and optional Spanish subtitles. --Tom Keogh

From The New Yorker
Further adventures of Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford), the courageous and incorruptible C.I.A. anaylst who is the hero of Tom Clancy's ungainly novels. The director, Phillip Noyce, whose "Patriot Games" (1992) was a surprisingly elegant Clancy adaptation, has once again taken a tub of prose and sweated it into a sleek, classically proportioned suspense picture. The screenwriters-Donald Stewart, Steven Zaillian, and John Milius-do a terrific job of keeping the insanely intricate plot from bogging down in confusion. And Noyce brings off a couple of memorable thriller set pieces: a furious, brilliantly edited ambush in a narrow Bogotá street; a tense and funny computer duel between Ryan and a weaselly C.I.A. bureaucrat played by Henry Czerny. The filmmakers haven't simply tamed the rogue elephant of Clancy's narrative; they've turned it into something that moves as gracefully and as powerfully as a gazelle. Also with Willem Dafoe, Donald Moffat, Harris Yulin, Joaquim de Almeida, James Earl Jones, and Anne Archer. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Revenge is a dangerous motive......
(I wrote this for the original, out of stock version)

Clear and Present Danger (1994 film)

The third film in the Jack Ryan series (and the last one to star Harrison Ford) deals with America's war on drugs and also the abuse of power in high places. As in Clancy's original novel, the plot hinges on one crucial question: how far can a President go to achieve a laudable goal, even if the means cross moral, legal and international boundaries?

As in the novel of the same name, the interception of an American-flagged yacht in the Caribbean results in the arrest of two Colombian "sicarios" (hit men) who have murdered the American owner (along with his entire family). The resulting FBI-CIA investigation reveals that Peter Hardin, the late yacht owner and personal friend of the U.S. President (Donald Moffat), had extensive ties to the Cali drug cartel. Hardin, as Jack Ryan (Ford) explains, had been skimming millions from his "partners," thus sealing his fate.

Although Ryan is aware that the President is understandably upset that his late friend was a money launderer for the drug lords, he is not aware that the National Security Advisor, Admiral James Cutter (Harris Yulin) and his CIA colleague Bob Ritter (Henry Czerny) have been given off-the-record orders to do "something about the drugs pouring into the country." When the President declares to Cutter that the drug cartels pose a "clear and present danger" to the United States, the somewhat slimy admiral and Ritter unleash several covert operations within the sovereign nation of Colombia.

While Ryan does get orders to go to Bogotá and find out about Hardin's financial dealings with the Cali Cartel, he is totally unaware that Cutter and Ritter have launched Operation Reciprocity, a clandestine invasion of Colombia by Spanish-speaking special-ops troops. These forces, supervised by ex-CIA field officer John Clark (Willem Dafoe), wreak havoc as they blow up drug labs and smuggling aircraft. Nevertheless, Cutter and Ritter keep Ryan in the dark, and the upright analyst and now acting Deputy Director (Intelligence) unknowingly tells a Senate subcommittee that there are no troop deployments planned for Colombia.

Further complicating Ryan's life is the sudden discovery that his boss and mentor, Admiral James Greer (James Earl Jones), is dying of cancer. Little does he know that his ascent to Greer's job will propel Ryan into the middle of a life and death situation in Colombia...and a constitutional crisis at home.

What makes the Jack Ryan books and movies work is not just the slam-bam action sequences or the glimpses at the mysterious workings of the CIA, but the very notion that a CIA employee can be portrayed as an honorable and decent fellow. Tom Clancy clearly desired to show that the agents and analysts who work for the CIA are not the "dark forces" depicted in films such as "Three Days of the Condor" or "Firefox." Nor are they martini-swilling, trigger happy, bed-hopping super-spies like James Bond. Ford (like Alec Baldwin before him, and like Ben Affleck after) shows Ryan has intelligence, courage, and, above all, integrity.

As in Patriot Games, Ford also shares a few short yet important scenes with his wife and two children. Ann Archer and Thora Birch returned to play Ryan's wife Cathy and daughter Sally, giving Ryan that most un-Bond-like sense of family and a tie to the audience.

Although the screenplay by Donald Stewart, Steven Zaillan, and John (Red Dawn) Millius strip the huge and complex Clancy novel to its bare essentials and changes many scenes and situations, Ford's acting and Philip Noyce's able directing makes Clear and Present Danger a top-notch action thriller. Even though as in Patriot Games the ending is rendered in a good-guy vs. bad-guy shootout (whereas in the novel the ending for the villains was more subtle and thereby more chilling), this movie is still worth watching.

The DVD I own is Paramount's first barebones release. Of course, even that is an improvement over the pan-and-scan "full screen" VHS tape I had previously owned. The movie has been restored to its original Widescreen presentation, given Dolby digital audio in both English and French, Spanish subtitles, English captions, interactive menus, and the theatrical trailer. The newer version has commentary tracks, making-of featurettes, and other extras.

One of the best special effects movies on DVD
Not only is this a very well-directed and action-packed movie, it also has one of the best surround sound-encoded tracks available on DVD releases. If you have a dolby digital 5.1 surround system, this movie will really overwhelm you. The explosions will shake the ground....a true theater experience without going to the theater.

A Tasty Brew
This is one of two films based on Clancy's novels which really work, the other being The Hunt for Red October. It is certainly far superior to Patriot Games in terms of plausibility and cohesion of narrative, quality of acting, exploration of central issues, and ultimate resolution of various conflicts. I do think the escape by helicopter from one drug lord's compound was overdone but the film concludes appropriately with Ryan's final conversation with President Bennett (Donald Moffatt) and then his arrival at the subcommittee hearing chaired by Senator Mayo (Hope Lange). I still would have preferred that Alec Baldwin continue as Jack Ryan but concede that Harrison Ford is far more credible in this film than he was in Patriot Games, perhaps because he and his colleagues were working with a much better screenplay, one on which John Milius collaborated with Donald E. Stewart and Steve Zaillian. (It should be noted that Stewart and Zaillian also collaborated on the screenplay and must share at least some of the blame for Patriot Games' inadequacies. Both films were also directed by Phillip Noyce, another accomplice.) Having the President of the United States actively involved in Danger's narrative gives it a unique substance, to be sure, but also affords valuable opportunities to explore moral corruption and political expediency at the highest levels of government.

There are several outstanding performances, including Moffatt's in a difficult role as is Henry Czerny's as Robert Ritter, deputy director of the C.I.A. and Ryan's principal adversary; also Willem Dafoe as Clark and Harris Yulin as Cutter. Anne Archer reprises her do-nothing-but-beam role as Cathy Ryan, adoring wife; James Earl Jones also reprises his role as Admiral James Greer whose health problems deny Ryan his mentor and friend's assistance when needed most. This is a "techno-thriller" in several respects but its special effects are almost never gratuitous. An important sub plot involves Moira Wolfson (Ann Magnuson) who is the F.B.I. director's administrative assistant and a key source of classified information which she provides to Felix Cortes (brilliantly played by Joaquim DeAlmeida) whom she believes to be a reputable businessman, not knowing that he is a key operative for one of the Colombian drug lords. Wolfson loves Cortes to death, literally.

Lots of well-staged action, including an ambush of the F.B.I. director and his entourage, another ambush of American troops in the jungle (a callous and bloody betrayal by their government), a missile attack on the drug lords and their families, and the final helicopter escape by Ryan and Clark. As in The Hunt for Red October, the story line sustains the film's momentum, aided by generally solid performances. I do not consider this film an indictment of any specific administration or foreign policy. Clancy is primarily a storyteller, not a polemicist. The United States will continue to have clear and present dangers no matter who is in the White House. When this film was first released (in 1994), one reviewer suggested that it was inspired in part by some of former C.I.A. director William Casey's elaborate schemes for secret operations against the drug lords. (I have no idea whether or not that is true.) In any event, I find this a thoroughly entertaining, well-made film and look forward to seeing it again.