Category: Ann Magnuson

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.

PANIC ROOM

By Marc S. Sanders

There are few films I come across where a phone call to 911 is immediately put on hold. There are few films I come across where the one in danger has an opportunity to speak face to face with a policeman while the burglars factually can not hear, and will still not relay that she, her daughter and her ex-husband are in danger. There are few films. Just a few. David Fincher’s stupid excuse for a cat and mouse thriller known as Panic Room is one of those few films.

I can forgive loopholes on occasion for the sake of maintaining suspense and to simply have a complete movie. I can not forgive it here however. Opportunities open up easily for Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart to take an upper hand. Equally so, moments open up for the bad guys as well, played ineptly by Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakum and Jared Leto. The game of outsmarting you might find depicted in Home Alone is more sensible than David Koepp’s mindless script.

The three bad guys break into a home equipped with a sealed panic room. As they get in, Foster and Stuart make it into the secure area before being taken captive.

Fincher does great camera work within a 3 story New York brownstone. He can capture in a single shot a close up of a breathless Foster in one half of the screen while a menacing figure walks covertly down an adjacent hallway on the other half. The labyrinth of the house looks good in darks and midnight blues. That’s where the attributes of Panic Room stop, however.

Everything else is controlled by manufactured contrivances offered up by Koepp’s script. Security cameras can be smashed while it just so happens that the thieves are not watching the monitors. When the electronic door to the room is opened, no one will hear a thing until a lamp topples over. You don’t even here the buzzing or slam of the steel plated door. You can also sneak around the wooden floors and will not be heard until Koepp’s writing and Fincher’s direction allow it. Otherwise these old floors will creak and echo. I talk often about how the environment in a film is a character in and of itself, like the Overlook Hotel in The Shining. Well if this brownstone is giving a performance in this film, then it dropped a line, came in too early, came in too late and missed a dozen cues during its performance.

Policemen will come to the door and nary insist on coming inside the home, where a dead body lay as well as a wounded hostage and various wreckage is strewn about. Foster knows the bad guys can’t hear a conversation while they are in the panic room, but she will still not share the fact that she’s in peril. Why????

Most infuriating is that 911 will take an emergency call and put her on hold. That’s where I checked out. Nothing else mattered.

Panic Room is beyond intelligence in so many ways.

Oh yeah, also there are no neighbors within an adjacent neighborhood of brownstones that ever hear the commotion at hand.

My colleague Miguel might say, “well then you’d never have a movie.” My reply is Panic Room doesn’t seem like it ever was a movie to begin with.