The Sum of All Fears

The Sum of All Fears had a long journey to the big screen. Originally intended to be Harrison Ford's third outing as Jack Ryan, when an agreement on the script could not be reached, Ford eventually dropped out. Eventually, the producers made an decision to reboot the series with a younger Jack Ryan at the start of his career at the CIA. In the process, the film became something very different from it's source novel. 

CIA analyst Jack Ryan (played by Ben Affleck) is summoned by Director Bill Cabot (played by Morgan Freeman) to accompany him to Russia to meet their new President, Alexander Nemerov (played by Ciaran Hinds). They are allowed to examine a Russian Nuclear Weapons facility as part of the SMART treaty, where Ryan notices that three nuclear scientists that are supposed to be there are missing. Cabot sends John Clark (played by Liev Schreiber) to Russia to track them down. Clark tracks them to a former Soviet military outpost, where Cabot suspects they are building a secret nuclear weapon that Russia can use without it being tied back to them. However, the bomb was in fact being built for a megalomaniacal  Neo-Nazi Richard Dressler (played by Alan Bates), an Austrian billionaire who is plotting to set the United States and Russia against one another in a nuclear war and from the ensuing rubble intends to build his own fascist European superpower. Ryan and his collegues begin tracking a crate they suspect contained the bomb that left the Ukraine and ultimately wound up in Baltimore. Ryan tries to get the warning out, but it's too late as the bomb detonates in the city. This leaves Ryan and his colleagues scrambling to find out who was responsible and get that information to their President, J. Robert Fowler (played by James Cromwell) before World War III starts between the United States and Russia.  

The film was directed by Phil Alden Robinson from a script by Paul Attanasio and Daniel Pyne. Since the political sphere had changed significantly since the publication of Tom Clancy's novel, a change in bad guy was deemed necessary for the film, with a change from East German funded Arab Terrorists to Eastern European Neo-Nazis, taking inspiration from the likes of Jorg Haider and the rise of neo-nationalist movements in the area. Alden Robinson also felt the use of Arab terrorists was problematic and cliche as well. The other big change for the film was aging Jack Ryan down to his Analyst roots. Since the idea was to do more than one film with Affleck as Ryan, that made sense. This book, and really the one the preceded it, Clear and Present Danger, began what I consider Tom Clancy really painting himself into a corner with the Jack Ryan character. In each successive book Ryan kept getting promoted. Realistically, if you save the world that many times chances are you would get promoted, but from a narrative point of view it really limits what you can realistically do with the character. Still, even with those large changes to the book, the film still creates a satisfying political thriller and an especially bold one for a movie that came out a mere nine months after the most devastating terrorist attack on this country. Granted, the film was already complete by the time those attacks occurred, but it still is unflinching in it's depiction of the nightmare scenario and Phil Alden Robinson depicts with with a realism and conviction that makes the film riveting. Although, in retrospect, in the second half of the film, the pieces of the puzzle Ryan assembles come to him just a little bit too easily and just a little to convenient. Maybe I'm wrong and we are able to analyze nuclear samples in the field and discern right there exactly which reactor they came from through the assistance of a handy chart. But, I suppose I can allow a little suspension of disbelief in the interest of keeping the plot moving.

The film has an impressive cast led by Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan. He does a decent job with the character. He's not as great in the role as Harrison Ford was but I didn't hate him in the role either. There's an early scene in the film that I quite liked where he and his colleagues are watching some covert footage of the then current Russian President and arguing over whether or not he was gaining weight. It was a nice moment that felt authentic because these folks would know these people well enough to have discussions like that and whether or not the President is off his diet (and is followed by an amusing scene where said President instructs his secretary that he is to be described as robust and healthy and then promptly keels over). Morgan Freeman makes a reliably solid supporting turn as Bill Cabot, more or less standing in for James Earl Jones for this film with a similar gravitas. James Cromwell does well as President Fowler and really conveys what a president would be feeling when faced with actual nuclear war, backed by some of the best character actors working today as his advisers in Phillip Baker Hall, Ron Rifkin and Bruce McGill. Liev Schreiber is decent as John Clark but doesn't quite make the same impression in the role that Willem Dafoe did in the previous film. Still, his team up with Ryan in the first half of the film is amusing. Bridget Moynahan plays the future Cathy Ryan (here still Ryan's girlfriend) and is similarly thankless as Anne Archer's role in the previous two films, existing so Ryan has a personal stake in the unfolding events of the story, this time working as a doctor in a Baltimore Hospital.    

Despite the numerous changes from it's source material, so much so that Tom Clancy quipped on the commentary the Phil Alden Robinson directed the film that ignored his book, it remains a gripping and exciting political thriller very much in step with the three films that preceded it. Unfortunately, the reboot didn't take and another film wouldn't be made with Affleck in the role, instead rebooting again 12 years later. It's a film that still works for me and one that I still enjoy in the series of Jack Ryan films.