“The Hunt for Red October” is a superb thriller because it never forgets that a personal game being played by one man may have large-scale ramifications.
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I´m a big history buff, and I once considered pursuing a career as a historian. I grew up during the final years of the Cold War, and I was particularly fascinated with the curiosity that was the Soviet Union. Here was a country that faced severe food and energy shortages, yet it had the resources to pose a significant military threat to the world. Given the high stakes of the Cold War (the fate of Earth was at hand), I followed international developments with the zeal of chess fans studying the moves of a Kasparov-Karpov match.
Of Tom Clancy´s numerous books, I´ve only read one--"The Hunt for Red October". I read it because of my interest in Soviet matters and because Clancy wrote it before he had the commercial clout to write longwinded novels that lost readers in a jungle of techno-babble that did nothing except to show how geeky he can be. (I started reading "The Cardinal of the Kremlin" and "Clear and Present Danger", but I couldn´t get past more than a few pages into either one of them. Subsequently, I gave up on reading anything else by Clancy.) What I liked so much about "Red October" in book form was that Clancy created characters with multi-faceted dimensions. The narrative felt like a human interest drama as much as a military thriller. The film adaptation of "Red October" recreates the tension between strong-willed characters in the book. From a cynical perspective, you could say that no one wants to lose his job due to an error in judgment. On the other hand, the case could also be made that no one wants to have the guilt of starting a nuclear war weighing on their shoulders.
In "Red October", Captain Marko Ramius (Sean Connery) takes the Soviet Navy´s newest submarine, the Red October, for a spin in the North Atlantic. The submarine has the capability of making silent runs courtesy of its caterpillar drive--basically, underwater jet engines that suck and expel water, propelling the submarine at great speeds without the use of moving parts. The Red October could cruise along the coasts of NATO countries undetected until it launched its arsenal of nuclear ballistic missiles. The Americans fear a first-strike from the Soviet Union, and the fact that the entire Soviet fleet seems to have mobilized for war doesn´t soothe Washington´s fears.
CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin), being an expert on Russian affairs, has to figure out why the Soviets appear to be on the war path for no apparent reason. Ryan has to collect information from diverse sources, including sonar readings from an American submarine tracking the Red October, intercepted enemy messages that reveal a Soviet desire to sink the Red October, and intuitive guesses made from first impressions formed when Ryan once met Ramius at a state dinner. Ultimately, when Ryan guesstimates Ramius´s intentions, the story becomes a race against both the American and Soviet navies.
There aren´t a lot of out-and-out action sequences in "Red October", so I don´t think of it as an action film. Rather, I think of it as a mystery that can be solved only by someone resourceful like Jack Ryan. Ryan himself professes to be only a desk-bound bureaucrat (despite his service in the Marine Corps). Ryan finds an ally when he meets the captain of the U.S.S. Dallas, Bart Mancuso (Scott Glenn). While he´s a bit jittery and trigger-happy from being on the front lines for most of his career, Captain Mancuso is also intelligent enough to listen to his subordinates and advisors, all of whom have different talents that enable him to make the best possible decision during crises.
The movie offers a number of wonderful performances. Sean Connery looks suitably grave and commanding in that handsome Soviet uniform. Alec Baldwin knew that he wasn´t a lead and only a member of a huge ensemble, so he doesn´t try to dominate the movie. Rather, he plays Jack Ryan the way the average person would behave when caught in a situation beyond their control--with a mixture of pluck and exasperation. There are too many big names to list in the space of a review, but this movie makes the most of one of the best casting jobs ever for a motion picture production.
Ultimately, "The Hunt for Red October" is a superb thriller because it never forgets that a personal game being played by one man may have large-scale ramifications. The Soviets are willing to risk war in order to avoid losing face. The Americans are willing to risk war in order to avoid losing first-strike capabilities. Everyone is doing his best to appear "helpful" to the other side in order to paste a diplomatic face on a volatile situation. The feints and phantom gestures orchestrated by military commanders on both sides of the Iron Curtain are mesmerizing to behold. Yes, it´s true that the world is a better place now than it was when two nuclear superpowers gripped each other in an embrace of death. Still, in all honesty, I kind of miss the bad ol´ days. :-P
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