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Good Fears
Today, we have Hollyfeld's review of The Sum of All Fears. Being a longtime Tom Clancy fan, I can't wait to see it this weekend. We should have one more review before June. Expect it online tomorrow. Same DeadPool channel, same DeadPool time...
The Sum of All Fears Review
"Some reviews are just hard to write. Some reviews pain you, because it hurts to criticize the work of someone you respect (see my recent Windtalkers review, for example). However, what I find infinitely worse than criticizing the accomplishments of others is what I am about to do... that is, praise the shit out of them.
There are two particular reasons why praising The Sum of All Fears is going to be so difficult for me. On a more immediate level, liking every aspect of a film can lead to very short reviews. 'I liked it.' 'I liked it a lot.' Or even the very real statement of, 'I think it’s the best political thriller since The Manchurian Candidate.' The only thing worse than having to elaborate on these simple praises is the flack you get from readers after doing so. 'You’re not a critic.' 'How could everything in the movie be great?' Or the most annoying, 'I didn’t like this movie as much as you did. You must be/think I am some kind of MORON!!!'
I digress. Suffice it to say, this will be a glowing review of The Sum of All Fears, the latest in a surprisingly strong string of summer blockbusters this year. It’s also the latest in a dependably entertaining series of political thrillers featuring Jack Ryan, a recurring character in the works of Tom Clancy. Clancy’s novels have been the basis for The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, previously, and each one remains a smart, entertaining piece of Hollywood filmmaking.
Each one, also, had a more dependable pedigree than The Sum of All Fears, featuring dependable box office draws like Sean Connery or Harrison Ford, and directed by such successful directors as John McTiernan (Die Hard, Predator) and Phillip Noyce (Dead Calm, Blind Fury). Sum noticeably breaks this chain of surefire successes by hiring Ben Affleck (who hasn’t starred in a bonafide hit since 1998) and infrequent director Phil Alden Robinson (who, in spite of helming Field of Dreams and the under-seen Sneakers, has never directed a genuine thriller). The fact that Robinson’s name is mentioned so prominently in the film’s trailer is not because audiences should recognize his name, it’s because they very soon will.
The Sum of All Fears focuses on the first adventure of Jack Ryan, a story that continuity freaks will complain occurs years after the events of the last three movies. Get over it. James Bond has been in his forties since the early sixties, not including having been old enough to come out of retirement in the early eighties, followed by becoming younger than he’d been in years in the early nineties. No one cared then, no one should really care now. That the people behind Clancy’s franchise have decided to bid adieu to strict continuity in the series simply means that there can be Jack Ryan films for years to come, a prospect that any moviegoer should be happy about.
In this particular adventure, the best, clearest (you have thirty seconds to explain the events of Clear and Present Danger - seriously, try it) and most heartstopping one yet, Ryan (Affleck) begins to become a major player in the CIA. At first, his job is a simple one, accumulating intelligence about major players in Russian politics, but when one of the men he has been closely documenting suddenly becomes the Russian president, he becomes a valuable commodity. Being, apparently, the only man in America with an inside knowledge of this new political player, Ryan is invited to a number of Top Secret meetings discussing the situations of mounting political pressure that follow. Ryan’s inexperience in these meetings proves invaluable, noticing things that more experienced officials, like Morgan Freeman’s Bill Cabot, miss, but also puts his job and the world in jeopardy.
That Ryan’s youthfulness makes him a flawed hero is refreshing, since young leading men in Hollywood movies today are too often portrayed as superheroic (Spider-Man, ironically, being another recent exception). Affleck is one of the modern kings of lovable goofiness, but here, unlike Pearl Harbor for example, translates his likeability to drama without sacrificing believability. Though his Jack Ryan can smirk with the best of them, at no point does he downplay the increasing seriousness of the story. And serious it is, because thanks to an underground cadre of fascist fanatics, a catastrophic war between Russia and America becomes increasingly, and what is even more frightening, believably imminent.
Believability in Sum of All Fears is key to the film’s success. At no point in the rapidly escalating political tension does a note seem false. Every wrong decision that both Russia and America make (and, if memory serves, that would be just about every decision in the movie), seems genuinely plausible, if not downright likely. The genius of the storyline and Robinson’s direction is that at no point do the omnipresent meetings and discussions in the film become tedious or, what is worse (and one of the flaws of the franchise before now), hard to follow. The accessibility of the events adds to the impact it has upon us. It is also refreshing to see a film not save its biggest bang for last, with the primary (and one of surprisingly few) action sequence coming square in the middle of the movie, sending an already mounting feeling of tension into overdrive.
The impact of this film is no doubt a more remarkable one since the events of 9/11, a day which I have till now refrained from mentioning at length in any movie review. This restraint on my part comes as a result both of my generation’s renowned detachment and also of my belief that, well, it doesn’t really matter that much to the movie industry. The Sum of All Fears proves me wrong on that second count, because the film, which would have been brilliant in any era, is devastatingly nerve-wracking in this one. And during its run time marked the first occasion in which I was genuinely frightened for our world’s current state of affairs, and feared for my safety from terrorism. The depiction of the events is that strong, and this strength equated with some of the most captivated audiences I have ever seen.
Hollywood movies are hard to make, and indeed, I think fewer Hollywood classics are being made now than ever. But this film is one of those classics, and as I said before, I think it is easily the greatest of its genre since 1962. Phil Alden Robinson pulls tension seemingly out of his hat in even the smallest scenes, and cultivates not only the best performance from Ben Affleck since Dogma, but also some of the better performances of James Cromwell, Liev Schreiber and Morgan Freeman’s careers. Everyone is better off for having been involved in The Sum of All Fears, and everyone in the audience is better off for having seen it. The odds are that you won’t find a better made blockbuster this year."
(Review submitted by Hollyfeld.)
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That's all folks...
Jean-François Allaire (aka DeadPool)
Questions, comments, praise etc. Email me at deadpool@tnmc.org
Jean-François Allaire is TNMC's first columnist. At only 24 years old he has become a respected entertainment journalist, with his columns appearing in Corona's Coming Attractions and Scr(i)pt magazine. He also writes a monthly column in Screenwriters Monthly entitled 'The Last Word.' Hailing from Montreal this young writer is determined to dig up all the details on the movies before they hit your local theater. If you're part of a movie production then you really need to be talking to him.
