Clear and Present Danger (1994)

Director: Phillip Noyce

Cast: Harrison Ford, Willem Dafoe, Anne Archer, James Earl Jones

Have I Seen it Before: Sure.

Did I Like It: I’ve sometimes compared a film that doesn’t quite work as well as it should to a casserole dish filled with uncooked ingredients. Everything good is there, but the total is less than the sum of its parts. Clear and Present Danger is something different. It is entertaining enough. It certainly clings to the ethos that permeates throughout the Jack Ryan series of films that eschews Clancy’s later instinct to believe his own press*. Ford has yet to start his prolonged period of of sleepwalking through entire films. It’s all good.

And yet…

Something still doesn’t add up. Ford and Noyce are doing better work in Patriot Games (1992). Greer (Jones)—just about the only constant throughout this series—is dispatched in what feels like the kind of thing meant to propel Ryan (Ford) through the third act of the story. Willem Dafoe is always nice to see, especially in a film released before we really knew what we had with him, but he also feels just a tad miscast*. I even prefer Henry Czerny playing essentially the same role in Mission: Impossible (1996), and again in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning (2023) and Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2025). Ultimately, the story is more than a little too self-conscious for its own good. I almost wish the film would have hued closer to what I was imagine was in John Milius’ original screenplay. I mean, he was the only who has been able to do anything with Conan, so his bite might just have been the right ingredient for this.

All of it is almost right, and the sum total of the movie is pretty good. As such, it is less of an uncooked casserole, and more of a fully cooked casserole made up of a cacophony of leftovers.

I did not think this review of a Tom Clancy movie would have quite so many uses of the word “casserole.”

*A big reason why the film series has struggled to get its act together after this film, despite two or three attempts.

**If I remember correctly, Clancy would have preferred Tom Selleck in the row, and not to be caught on the record agreeing with late Mr. Clancy, but I can see it.

Patriot Games (1992)

Director: Phillip Noyce

Cast: Harrison Ford, Anne Archer, Patrick Bergin, Sean Bean

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure. I can’t help but be a sucker for anything Jack Ryan related, as long as it comes from that era before Clancy started believing his own press, or worse yet, died.

Although, I do probably have deeper, more lasting memories of the score. As a young kid, I practically wore out the cassette I had of Horner’s music from this film, but then again all kids went through their phase where they listened to James Horner scores non-stop, right?

41-year-olds have the same thing, right?

Did I Like It: That last section covers a lot of ground for a proper review. The Horner score—one of his best—can propel through quite a bit. The story, too, has a simplicity to it that makes it easier to swallow than even The Hunt for Red October (1990) and Clear and Present Danger (1994). The less said about the later films in the series, the better, and definitely the less said about the doorstops books that never saw the light of the projection booth, the much, much better.

Ostensibly a sequel to Red October I can’t help but compare the apples and oranges of Baldwins and Fords*. Ford feels like the kind of guy that Clancy imagined when he was writing, but there’s something so anxious about Baldwin that gave Ryan an almost nebbish quality. That quality is all gone now.

Ultimately, this is a nice little thriller from that peak era of Harrison Ford’s peak thriller era in the 1990s. Although I’d probably watch The Fugitive (1993) or maybe Air Force One (1997)** before this. It’s the kind of movie that as a kid I imagined watching, because it was the kind of movie that grown ups watched.

*You won’t need to guess much where I stand on the eternal Anne Archer vs. the blink-and-you’ll-miss-her Gates McFadden debate.

**Could you imagine if Ford continued with the role? Things could have gotten real weird, real convoluted, and more than a little prophetic. Seriously, go read Executive Orders. No, wait. Don’t do that. Read the back of the book. You’ll get the idea.