Category: Donald Moffat

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

By Marc S. Sanders

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan finds himself in an inadvertent private war between the United States and Colombian drug kingpins in Clear And Present Danger.  Harrison Ford returns as the heroic government operative. I like this film for much of the same reasons I liked the prior Jack Ryan pictures.  These movies give an inside view of internal politics within Congress, the CIA and inside the hallowed halls and Oval Office of The White House.  The Clancy adaptations are not just about action set ups and shootouts.  Though we are treated to plenty of that material as well.

The film opens with a luxury yacht being raided by the Coast Guard. They uncover Colombian killers that have murdered a wealthy American and his family for reasons of a failing partnership with drug dealers.  The incident can be bridged to the President played by Donald Moffat, a terrific character actor who also shared the screen with Ford in Mike Nichols’ Regarding Henry. He secretly initiates a retaliation for what has occurred while also insisting on collecting over six hundred and fifty million dollars he feels the US is entitled to, following his friend’s murder.  Henry Czerny, playing a carbon copy of his role in Mission: Impossible, headlines the covert plot and recruits a mercenary named John Clark (Willem Dafoe) to place a clandestine militant team into the South American jungles to take out the drug runners one by one.

The suit and tie formal dynamics fall on Jack Ryan when he swears testimony on the legitimacy of the country’s response.  However, the President’s armament exercises are unbeknownst to Jack.  When it finally dawns on him what has been occurring, into the field Jack Ryan goes to clean up the mess.

A lot of spinning plates structure the storytelling of Clear And Present Danger which is on par with Clancy’s thousand-page novels.  There’s an abundance of characters to address, betrayals to happen and even the mechanics of various weaponry and policy decisions that need exploring, despite the innate complexities of it all.  It can feel overwhelming.  However, with this film, as well as with The Hunt For Red October and Patriot Games, I feel included.  If you’re patient through the exposition and set ups, then these fictional controversies become very absorbing, and you feel like you’re there.  

There’s a great scene between Ford and Czerny racing to download vs delete some suspicious files on a computer.  These guys are in their boring offices, dressed in their boring suits and they’re clicking on the mouse pad and typing away on the keyboard.  Director Phillip Noyce gets nail biting back and forth closeups on each guy as they are off to the races trying to get ahead of each other.  Then it becomes a yelling match in the hallway with threats of prosecution between both men, and I feel I’m in on the whole thing.

There is also a good amount of internal conversations between the main drug czar (Miguel Sandoval) and his top henchman (Joaquim de Almeida).  Almeida’s role is written very well as we witness how smart and resourceful he is while protecting the best interests of his employer.

For the most part, the action is nothing special.  However, the highlight of the whole film involves an SUV convoy getting ambushed by Colombian terrorists mounted on rooftops firing missiles at the government vehicles below.  Harrison Ford prefers to do as much stunt work as possible and it definitely helps the ten-minute sequence.  This is an outstanding part of the picture with perfect editing of sound and photography. Later on, we see Ford leap on to the landing gear of an ascending helicopter. Very impressive. Harrison Ford always does his best to invest himself in his movies.

I also admire many of the explosions that went into the Special Forces’ continuing storyline of sabotaging the drug lords’ laboratories and various locales. Nothing is miniaturized here, and the resulting blasts are really big and eye opening. This movie did not shortchange on anything it was attempting to accomplish.

The film adaptation of Clancy’s fourth book takes some major liberties.  In the novel, the story is primarily focused on John Clark and his mission, with Jack Ryan not appearing until after the midway point.  However, at this stage of Harrison Ford’s career there was no way he’d accept just a supporting role.  The notable changes hold well within the screenplay though, and a showdown between Jack Ryan and the President is one for the ages.

Overall, Clear And Present Danger was a successful picture at the box office. Critics and Clancy fans alike had favorable responses to the picture.  So, it’s disappointing that producers decided to try numerous reinventions of the Jack Ryan franchise subsequentially.  Those other movies, along with a TV show, would prove well.  Yet, it is regrettable that Harrison Ford, or at least this interpretation of the hero, did not move on through Tom Clancy’s ongoing stories transcending within other areas of government and espionage.  If you have read the books, then maybe you recall the unbelievable ending to Without Remorse.  Boy, would I have loved to see what Harrison Ford did with the cliffhanger that closed out that book. Care to know? Then this Unpaid Movie Critic suggests you pick up a book.

NOTE OF TRIVIA: James Horner conducts the music for this film and he includes samples that were used in the beginning of Aliens. Interesting to catch this as the music works for both a science fiction piece, as well as for a political thriller.

CLASS ACTION

By Marc S. Sanders

Two sharp San Francisco attorneys go against one another in Michael Apted’s Class Action.  The hitch is that it is father vs daughter and the two were adversarial with each other long before this trial ever began.

Gene Hackman is Jed Ward, the small-time lawyer who grandstands big theatrics in a courtroom while fighting for the little man who’s repeatedly suffered at the negligence of Goliath corporations.  His daughter is Margaret Ward played by Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.  She’s vying to be partner for the giant law firm that represents an automobile manufacturer getting sued for faulty explosive gas tanks on their cars.  

Jed is bullish and cocky.  Margaret is trying to prove her dominance over a father who repeatedly cheated on mom and was hardly the devoted dad as he pursued one landmark case or bed partner after another.

I saw Class Action in college while taking a law studies class.  The case at hand was inspired by a well-known trial focused on Ford Pintos.  Ford was found to deliberately ignore a faulty car part because the cost to replace the item on all of their automobiles would far outweigh the cost to settle with all of the victims of the class action lawsuit.  That’s a neat connection showing what was real being weaved into a fictitious story.  

The problem with Apted’s film is the amount of melodramatic scenes devoted to its father and daughter main characters.  It’s hammered into our consciousness over and over, and like most arguments they run in circles, getting nowhere.  We get it already.  You’ve got animosity towards each other.  Move along!

The olive branch is eventually extended as the film is approaching its standard third act, conveniently thanks to the giant law firm’s indiscretions to conceal evidence for the sake of victory.  

I’m really not spoiling much here.  This is a paint by numbers, cookie cutter outline.  You can see where everything will fall as soon as the 20th Century Fox logo appears at the beginning.

These are two good actors, but Gene Hackman is far better.  Most would agree. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is not a good enough contender against him.  Hackman comes off fierce.  Mastrantonio comes off hokey like something out of a day time soap opera. She’s been much more impactful in other films like The Color Of Money and even Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.

I argue though that she would have been much more effective if James Horner’s instrumental music wasn’t used so much. I can feel the emotions with just the two playing out their scenes of dialogue and tempers flaring.  I shouldn’t need help to get there from a swooning saxophone that intrudes and plays over, of all people, the great Gene Hackman.  

Too much is focused on the family melodrama that also includes the mom/wife (Joanna Merlin) caught right in the middle.  I got tired of it.

I’m a sucker for courtroom drama.  I know.  In most movies, you know the beats of a cinematic trial.  You can easily predict which witness is going to be undone on the witness stand.  You likely will predict who will win the trial.  Yet, I get a thrill out of the rapid-fire pace of the questioning and the calls for objections with the barking rulings heaped on by the judge.  It’s all standard, but I gobble it up like potato chips.  The two leads are marvelous in the courtroom, despite the spoon fed ease the script allows.

When the two are screaming at each other about their past transgressions, I had no interest.  The film angles itself as a courtroom thriller with a twist on the litigators when it’s barely that way at all.  

It’s right in front of you guys!  An astounding case of deliberate negligence by one of the country’s biggest industrialists.  Why couldn’t we uncover more of the underhandedness that occurred there? Regrettably, the trial takes second banana to the trite family squabbles with a cheesy late ‘80s soundtrack. 

Hard and Fast Rule: Don’t ever play off the great Gene Hackman.