August 3rd, 1994
More like CLEAR AND PRESZZZZzzzzzzz, am I right, guys?
Oh, am I wrong? Maybe I’m wrong. I’m not the best judge, because I’m a heathen when it comes to Jack Ryan. My dad loved Tom Clancy books, my wife and many of my friends consider THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER to be one of the all time greats, many people love this character, I just think that gene skipped me. But here we are most of the way through our revisit of the summer of ’94 and it feels like we’re low on traditional blockbusters, so I was kind of excited to see CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER. There are plenty of things to like about it, especially when discussing it, but unfortunately I found it mostly dull to watch compared to PATRIOT GAMES, which I somewhat enjoyed and respectfully labelled “Adult Contemporary Action.”
This, too, is for the older folks that want some of the fantasy of Exceptional Men Who Get Shit Done but without the classless excess of flying kicks or other cool shit. It begins by massaging the Adult Contemporary Action erogenous zones, showing people in uniforms operating various types of machinery on a submarine and a US Coast Guard vessel. The inciting incident is the Coast Guard boarding a suspicious yacht in the Caribbean and discovering its American businessman owner has been murdered by Colombians. Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford between THE FUGITIVE and SABRINA) is a CIA analyst who looks into it and discovers the American got offed by a cartel because he was laundering money for them and tried to embezzle some. (read the rest of this shit…)
The traditional action hero is a loner. He might have friends, but he lives and travels by himself. He drifts into town on a motorcycle or on foot, or he lives alone in a filthy apartment, loft, car, or trailer. Maybe he has a kid, usually a daughter, but if so she’s likely been kidnapped and he’s trying to get her back. He might’ve had a family before, might be seeking revenge for their deaths. More likely he just screwed it up. He was too obsessed with his job, or with a specific case or vendetta. She wanted him to quit. Couldn’t take all the worrying anymore. He meant well but he knows it was all his fault. Now he drinks.
