merelyaninnuendo Cleared And Present Danger2 And A Half Out Of 5Clear And Present Danger is a plot driven political thriller about a culmination of all the usual agendas that fuels an act of war, brewing in by the darker forces. Ticking for almost two and a half hours, the overkill sets in early due to its subjective procedure that is not only off-putting but also follows a textbook structure. All the action and chase sequences are nicely shot with amazing sound effects and fine editing amongst all the mind-numbing explosions. The politics and reasonings are justified with no usual flaws which doesn't suggest its excellence but the safe play that it plays. As much as lousy its final act grows the little tactics that used to work in its predecessor fails to upbeat or elevate the momentum as it used to. The writing is overstretched and not elaborative, there is a fine line between them that makers often crosses it unknowingly. The result of such acts can draw a nod out of the audience but fails to impress them. It is short on technical aspects like visual effects, background score and cinematography and neither is its camera work plausible for it to seek attention through it. Ford is bang on his bucks on revisiting his role with amazing supporting cast like Dafoe, Archer and Jones. Noyce; the director has done a decent work on executing the feature but the real culprit is its sloppy script that isn't sincere enough to breed the essential crisp out of the screen. The clean satirical political act and sharp sound effects are the only high points of the feature. Clear And Present Danger is an unstable and out-dated mishap of politics that may be accurately tossed but unfortunately overcooks its outcome.

rattsbreath "You've got yourself a chip in the big game now. You're gonna tuck that away, you are going to save that for a time when your own ass is on the line and then you're gonna pull it out. And I'm going to cash it in for you. Right?" Jack ... "Variable, this is Easy Rhino. Do you copy? Over. Loud and clear, Easy Rhino.- Do we have a gig?- That's a Rog. Target is lit. Start the music. Pickle's hot. Target is acquired and lit. Coming down. Keep the target painted. Sir? Boom. Mother of God! Circular error probability zero, Impact with high-order detonation. Have a nice day.

virek213 Tom Clancy's CIA analyst character Jack Ryan not only made an impact on the page, he also made an impact on the big screen as well. In the 1990 smash THE HUTN FOR RED October, as played by Alec Baldwin, he was in a race against time to find out whether a renegade Soviet submarine captain was out to defect to America, or out to launch. Then in 1992's PATRIOT GAMES, Ryan, then portrayed by Harrison Ford, went into action to protect his own family against the machinations of vengeful ultra-violent Irish Republican Army terrorists. And then in 1994, again with Ford more than capably assuming the role, Ryan found himself in a pickle much closer to his job: covert military action related to the ongoing Latin American drug war in CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER.Ford's Jack Ryan is put into action into finding the root causes of why one of the closest friends of the President (Donald Moffatt) was killed on his boat in the Caribbean Sea. As it turns out, the president's dead friend had stolen money from a Colombian drug kingpin (Miguel Sandoval), like six hundred forty million dollars…and change. For Ford, this may seem like a fairly routine matter, as is him having to go to Congress to get authorization to fund the Colombian government's war against drug cartels like Sandoval's. But unbeknownst to him, Moffatt, along with his national security adviser (Harris Yulin) and deputy CIA director (Henry Czerny) have hatched a covert operation called Operation Reciprocity to finish off the drug war on American terms, sending a paramilitary unit commanded by a man named Clark (Willem Dafoe) into the hot zone. More importantly, when his mentor Admiral Greer (James Earl Jones) falls victim to inoperable pancreatic cancer that ultimately kills him, the weight of the world falls on his shoulders. Dafoe's team does score hits against Sandoval's operation; but the end result is a series of horrific acts of retribution, including the killing of an FBI team sent to assist Ford, followed by the capture of Dafoe's men by an associate of Sandoval's (Joaquin De Almeida) out to take over Sandoval's operation.Once Ford makes himself aware of the kind of paramilitary finagling that had been going on behind his back, he becomes a fighter once more—not for just his family, but the truth. This means having not only to go back down to the Colombian war zone to rescue Dafoe and his men, but also having to confront a president who has bent, and maybe even broken the law, for political points, and made decisions that resulted in massive losses of lives.Philip Noyce, who had also directed PATRIOT GAMES, returns to the director's chair for this well made and, at close to two and a half hours, epic action/suspense thriller. Not surprisingly, Ford delivers the kind of performance that could easily be classified as a "thinking man's action hero" as Ryan, acting not on impulse or an urge for explosions of violence, but a vigilant search for the truth. Ultimately, he wonders, exactly what does constitute a "clear and present danger" in the real world? Is it what the president says it is, when it is in the form of drug cartels (who, by the early 2000s, proliferated far closer to the U.S., in rural sections of Mexico)? Or is the real clear and present danger found in a host of decisions merely meant to gain political points? Ford's performance remains the centerpiece of this film, but Sandoval and De Almeida make for a pair of crafty (but non-stereotypical) South American heavies (much of the film was shot in Mexico), and there are also underhanded performances by Yulin and, most especially Czerny, the latter of whom is absolutely oily and corrupt (he would play a similar role only two years later in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE). And when he is not recycling his scores for ALIENS and PATRIOT GAMES, James Horner's score is extremely effective too, veering from typically stirring patriotic Americana to ethnic South American motifs (with pan flutes).Far too many action films from the 1980s onward are all about spectacle, and almost no suspense or substance. But CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER has a lot of those two important things in spades, and still ranks as one of the best films of the action genre during the 1990s.

GusF Based on the 1989 novel of the same name by Tom Clancy, this is a rather good thriller but it's not on the same level as the first two films. Whereas "The Hunt for Red October" started slowly and became more exciting as it went on, the reverse was true of this film. I would be lying if I said that the Latin American drug trade is a topic in which I am particularly interested. However, it made for an excellent film in the case of "Licence to Kill" and it could have done so here with a better script. As it stands, the script by Donald E. Stewart, Steve Zallian and John Millius is quite good but it never reaches the level that it should. A major problem with the film is that it is badly paced and about half an hour too long at 2 hours and 15 minutes. Philip Noyce, an excellent action film director, does the best that he can with the material.The film stars Harrison Ford in his second and final appearance as Jack Ryan, making him the only actor to play the character in more than one film. Not only that but Ryan is the only character other than Han Solo and Indiana Jones that Ford has played in more than one film, though a "Blade Runner" sequel is on the way. On this occasion, Ryan moves up in the world as he is appointed Acting Deputy Director of the CIA after his close friend and mentor Admiral James Greer is diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. He is charged with the investigation of the murder of Peter Hardin, a close friend and political associate of President Bennett, at the hands of a Colombian drug cartel. Unbeknownst to him, the National Security Adviser James Cutter and another CIA Deputy Director Bob Ritter have started a private little war in Colombia with the tacit approval of the President by sending in a Black Ops team to deal with the cartels. Ryan is a very strong, upright character and Ford does a very job at conveying his unimpeachable honour and morality. Since the action is mostly lacking compared to the first two films, Ford is at his best in these scenes.Fictional US Presidents tend to be one of two things: incredibly virtuous to the point that lying to the American people upsets them greatly (which isn't very believable) or corrupt by virtue of being involved in illegal activities through either malfeasance or nonfeasance (which is). President Bennett, played very well by Donald Moffat, falls into the latter category. He often relies on patriotism - the last refuge of a scoundrel according to Samuel Johnson and the first according to Ambrose Bierce - in an attempt to justify his actions. However, Ryan is too intelligent to fall for that old trick and he decides to testify against Bennett in Congress because it is the right thing to do. I generally found the scenes dealing with political maneuvering to be more interesting than those dealing with the drug trade, I'm afraid.That said, my favourite new character was Colonel Félix Cortez, a former senior member of Castro's inner circle who seeks to become the top dog in Colombia as far as the drug trade is concerned. He is a very devious, compelling character who is wonderfully played with a sort of dangerous charm by Joaquim de Almeida, who reminded me very much of Ricardo Montalban. James Earl Jones makes his third and final appearance as the dying Admiral Greer and is wonderful in the role, playing it with a great deal of pathos and tenderness. Since they played such a big role in "Patriot Games", I was very disappointed that Anne Archer and Thora Birch were relegated to little more than cameos. There are strong performances from Harris Yulin as Cutter, Miguel Sandoval as Ernesto Escobedo and Willem Dafoe as John Clark but Henry Czerny is dreadful as Ritter, failing to deliver a single line in a natural, believable manner.Overall, this is a somewhat disappointing conclusion to the 1990s "Jack Ryan" trilogy but I would have still loved a third film starring Harrison Ford. Alas, it was not to be.