The Sum of All Fears

3/16/2019

Let's see. Who else has 27,000 nukes for us to worry about? The Sum of All Fears is directed by Phil Alden Robinson and adapted to screenplay by Paul Attanasio and Daniel Pyne from the novel of the same name written by Tom Clancy. It stars Ben Affleck, Morgan Freeman, James Cromwell, Ciaran Hinds, Liev Schreiber, Bridget Moynahan and Michael Byrne. Music is scored by Jerry Goldsmith and cinematography by John Lindley. Film is the fourth film to feature the character Jack Ryan (Affleck). It is set in present day 2002 but with Ryan younger than in the other films and at the start of his career in the CIA. Plot is Cold War themed and finds America in a sweat when it is found that renegade terrorists have a nuclear weapon in their possession; just as a new supposed radical president ta

6/21/2020

_**The sum of all OUR fears**_ A nuke falls into the hands of a neo-fascist madman who wants to pit America against Russia. Then the unthinkable happens. Based on the Tom Clancy novel, "The Sum of All Fears" (2002) features Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan, a CIA analyst-turned-operative; Morgan Freeman plays his boss; and James Cromwell is on hand as the president. There are several other notables; even the hulking Sven-Ole Thorsen shows up. I’ve only see one other Clancy movie featuring Jack Ryan and that was “Patriot Games” (1992). While it was a’right, this one’s better; top-of-the-line actually. It’s a realistic globe-trotting political thriller that shows how the world is a tinder box and it’s not going to take much to set it on fire. It’s augmented by some welcome wit & low-key

11/25/2021

As a movie, it is OK, actually one of Afflec's better efforts. However, apparently the writer of the screenplay read a different book than I did, because "The Sum Of All Fears", the movie, had about 3 things in common with the book: The name, the main characters, and the fact that it involved nuclear weapons. Why change from Denver to Baltimore? The relationships between Ryan and most of the other characters is scrambled up. Neither Afflec nor Harrison Ford got the character of Jack Ryan right (Ryan is NOT an action hero, he is a deep thinker with a giant inferiority complex who still manages to be a hero, because he HAS to). Actually, Baldwin got it closer in Red October. If you haven't read the book, this film is passable, but if you expected to recognize Clancy's story, yo

2/11/2024

For once, Morgan Freeman isn't playing the US President in this rather run of the mill, political apocalypse film. He's actually the CIA director "Cabot" who is working with an analyst "Jack Ryan" (Ben Affleck) to try and thwart a cunning plan to detonate a recently stolen nuclear explosive in the United States so he can start an all out war with Russia. The fascists behind the scheme know full well that any such disaster will put the pressure on "Pres. Fowler" (James Cromwell) to counter-attack the newly installed Russian "Pres. Nemerov" (the dreadfully wooden Ciaran Hinds) and that all of their advisors will be suggesting a kill or be killed philosophy. The aftermath of the explosion further complicates matters for "Ryan" as he struggles to get to the truth, and then to get that to the a