Patriot Games

---

Tools:
Recommend review to a friend »

---

I have always been a bit of a snob when it comes to home theater. At least, I´ve always wanted the best quality picture for my viewing pleasure. The craptacular picture quality of VHS was something I had scorned and the first movie playback device I paid money for and called my own was an old single-sided Pioneer LaserDisc player. If I thought about it for a few moments, I could probably remember the model number. 204 is sticking in my head. The first movie I had ever purchased for my LaserDisc player was "Patriot Games." I can still remember coming home and plugging in that unit to the then-large 25" television in the living room and being in awe at the letterboxed picture that unfolded on the television with round corners. It was simply amazing. And the sound was far better than anything on the VCR as well. It is just a shame that most of my viewing during the first year I had a LaserDisc player was on a far smaller 13" television. The discs just cost too much to easily afford a new television to coincide with my beloved LD unit.

The years have passed and I am still very much a technophile of all things higher resolution. To date, the only VHS tapes I have ever purchased remain "Batman (1989)," which I had bought for comparative purposes and "It´s A Bundyful Life." All but my special edition "Tim Burton´s The Nightmare Before Christmas" LaserDisc has been sold and I no longer own a unit capable of playing that LaserDisc. Nowadays my viewing habits are mostly centered on the Blu-ray format and the defunct HD-DVD. With the changing times, I can enjoy my films at 1080p resolution and no longer find myself constrained to a hand-me-down television set that doesn´t deserve the technology being piped through it. The high definition formats have been an absolute blessing and the sting of LaserDisc´s demise is finally gone. Today, I am reminded of the glory days when my movies were 12" in diameter as I had the opportunity to once again enjoy "Patriot Games," but this time on the 5" Blu-ray disc.

"Patriot Games" is a reminder of another time; a time when Harrison Ford was a far larger star in Hollywood. He had become a household name with the roles of Han Solo and Indiana Jones. "Patriot Games" was his first outing in another franchise and familiar character; that of Tom Clancy´s leading man John Patrick "Jack" Ryan. Alec Baldwin first portrayed the former Marine in "The Hunt for Red October." For various reasons, Ryan was recast with Harrison Ford taking over the role in the follow-up "Patriot Games" and its sequel "Clear and Present Danger." These three films constituted a trilogy in the story arc and although author Clancy was never quite happy with the casting choice of the older Harrison Ford, it is Ford that is best remembered for his heroic performance as the CIA hero. Ben Affleck would attempt to revive the character in "The Sum of All Fears," but that combination of actor and character never made it past one film.

This film finds Jack Ryan (Ford) on a trip with his family to London. During this trip he finds himself involved in a terrorist plot to kill a member of the Royal Family. Ryan springs to action and manages to kill one of the terrorists and wound another, whom is captured by the British police. The IRA terrorist that Ryan brings to capture is Sean Miller (Sean Bean) and the man killed was his brother. This places Jack Ryan and his family instantly into the crosshairs of Miller and his men and when a daring rescue grants Miller his freedom, the Irish terrorist has no qualms about crossing the Atlantic and taking the fight to the area surrounding Washington D.C. and Annapolis, Maryland. Sean´s arrival in America places Jack´s wife Dr. Cathy Ryan (Anne Archer) and his young daughter Sally (Thora Birch) ino grave danger.

Jack is not alone as the terrorists slowly decent upon him. His longtime friend Lt. Commander Robby Jackson (Samuel L. Jackson) enters the fray after an attack on Cathy and Sally is made by Sean. Jack´s former CIA supervisor, Admiral James Greer (James Earl Jones), manages to talk Jack into returning to the CIA. Here Jack and his CIA team members scour the globe with satellite technology and intelligence to find where Sean and his assassins may be holed up. A terrorist camp in Africa is hit, but it becomes clear that Sean is not among them and that perhaps the attack on the Ryan family was directly caused by Miller. During this time, the Royal who Ryan had saved, Lord William Holmes (James Fox) comes to America and decides to pay the Ryan family a visit after Jack´s heroics in London. This creates a perfect situation for Sean to once again strike and get revenge against Ryan for the death of his brother.

With Ford, James Earl Jones, Sean Bean, Anne Archer and Samuel L. Jackson having lead and supporting roles in the film, the Phillip Noyce directed film is a well acted and nicely paced action thriller that is not fully loyal to the novel by Tom Clancy, but keeps much of the spirit of the original book. I had read "Patriot Games" before watching the film and while there are significant changes to the adapted screenplay by W. Peter Iliff, Donald E. Stewart and Steven Zaillian, I felt the excellent cast and solid combination of technology and action overcame the narrative shortcomings. One of the more significant changes in the story is the fate of the Sean Miller character. Another variance between book and film is the relation of the British Royalty to the Queen. The film has the Queen´s cousin as a target of the terrorists, while the book went a little higher up the Monarch´s family tree and a Prince was the assassination target. There are other changes, but these are the most apparent. Of course, more action was added to utilize Ford´s action star status.

Director Phillip Noyce did not have a large body of work before he signed on to direct the back-to-back Jack Ryan films starring Harrison Ford. He hasn´t done much since either unless you consider "The Saint" and "The Bone Collector" notable projects. Of course, Noyce is partly responsible for the horrendous "Sliver." "Patriot Games" is the director´s most important film and he and his cast of filmmakers wanted "Patriot Games" to be a ´family´ movie about Jack Ryan with the follow-up "Clear and Present Danger" concentrating more on action. Noyce was tasked with handling a fifty-year old Ford as Jack Ryan, whereas Alec Baldwin was roughly fifteen years younger. The change of star for the second Jack Ryan film didn´t pose much of a problem for Noyce and the writers after they rehashed the project to better fit Ford and maintain a story that mixes action with intelligence.

Part of the allure of "Patriot Games" has always been the clever use of military technology and brainpower that is a staple of the Tom Clancy books. There are a few very nice action scenes, but aside from the climactic face-off between Ryan and Miller, the action is handled in realistic circumstances and Ryan seems every bit of the ´everyman´ that has a military background, but must act to protect his family. Never in the film does Ryan seem like a superhero and credit must be given to both Ford and Noyce for the direction they took in the film. "Patriot Games" is one of the better films of its type and while many considered Baldwin a better Jack Ryan in "The Hunt for Red October," it has always been the film "Patriot Games" that I enjoy the most out of the four films created starring the Ryan character. This is an action film for an adult.

---

---