Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #54843 in DVD
• Released on: 1998-12-15
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 117 minutes

Customer Reviews

Slasher films a poor substitute
For sheer excitement on the edge of your not-so-easy chair, there's nothing like a good Jack Ryan story, and I think this is the best of them. The plot involves one of the most obsessed bad guys you'll ever see, a fanatically militant member of an IRA splinter group whose attack on the British royal family is thwarted almost unconsciously by Ryan, who is visiting England as a tourist/lecturer. Now ex-CIA, Ryan's family is nearby, and family is central in this tale of the cold-blooded world of international espionage and terrorism. The family angle is one that keeps the story so chilling throughout, as the terrorist's brother is shot to death by Ryan as he ruins their try on the royals, and our star villain then sets out to stalk Ryan and his wife and daughter.

The film moves at an almost perfect pace, and unveils to us some modern aspects of this shadowy world. For instance, even Ryan, played with understated perfection by Harrison Ford, is creeped out by his participation in a nighttime strike on a desert camp believed to be IRA training ground. In this scene he and several other jacket-and-tie types watch soldiers take out this nest of vipers a half-world away, thanks to infrared and satellite technology, all while detached voices calmly note "Target neutralized" and spies dressed like businessmen smile and nod while whispering to one another in thorough detachment from the blood and guts of the operation. All this technology and we are not removed from the days of the rich people perching on hills near the battles of Civil War days, sipping tea while viewing the entertainment.

I cannot give less than five stars to a film that draws me in so completely as this one, making me feel the tension with such clarity and indeed making it so easy to actually hate the villain. Yet the film strikes sour notes with the drunken Richard Harris's half-hearted performance as an IRA bigwig, and with the cliched ending moment of an otherwise superb boat chase at the film's climax. Two distracting moments would mean a score of 9 on a scale of 1 to 10, or, in Amazon terms, 4-1/2 stars. These being minor, a full five stars is quite reasonable. Nearly a perfect action film; even the understated music score is just so right that it can't be imagined being done any other way.

Clancy and Ford team up...
Tom Clancy's writing and Harrison Ford's acting team up for the first time in this film about CIA operative Jack Ryan. When Ryan makes a name for himself by saving a member of the British royal family from an assassination attempt, he finds himself and his family targeted by the IRA. Sounds strangely familiar to Oliver North and Abu Nidal... Anyway, the film is filled with great action sequences and interesting plot twists. A five star film.

Jack Ryan is the Man.
I really enjoy watching the films that Harrison Ford has made, but over the years have missed several of the films he has acted in. I've been trying to correct that by watching one of the Ford filmography that I haven't seen yet. That led me to watching PATRIOT GAMES. Before watching the film, I knew that the movie was based off of a Tom Clancy novel; starred Harrison Ford; and that it took place after THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER.

I really enjoyed watching the movie. It was filled with just enough suspense and fairly believable action to keep the film rolling along. The movie had a great cast (besides Ford, there's also James Earl Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, Sean Bean, Thora Birch, etc.). The movie involves Jack Ryan (Ford) saving a member of the English elite while vacationing in London and in the process kills a member of the IRA. The brother of said IRA member becomes obsessed with getting even with Ryan and tries to have him and his family murdered.

The film doesn't paint the IRA in a positive light at all and that in turn leads to some people thinking all Irish people are "bad". That's just not true. The Irish are great people and the IRA has done a few good things over the years. Nevertheless, the organization still has a reputation for being a terrorist group and unfortunately most of their good deeds have been overshadowed and outnumbered by the bad.

Anyway, PATRIOT GAMES is a decent action adventure/suspense movie. It's a good film to watch when you're not sure what you want to see.