Clear and Present Danger (film)

Clear and Present Danger

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Phillip Noyce
Produced by Mace Neufeld
Robert Rehme
Screenplay by Donald E. Stewart
Steven Zaillian
John Milius
Based on Clear and Present Danger 
by Tom Clancy
Starring Harrison Ford
Willem Dafoe
Miguel Sandoval
Belita Moreno
Joaquim de Almeida
James Earl Jones
Music by James Horner
Cinematography Donald McAlpine
Edited by Neil Travis
Production
company
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release dates
  • August 3, 1994
Running time
 141 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $62 million
Box office $215.9 million

Clear and Present Danger is a 1994 spy action thriller film directed by Phillip Noyce, based on Tom Clancy's book of the same name. It was preceded by the 1990 film The Hunt for Red October and the 1992 film Patriot Games, all three featuring Clancy's fictional character Jack Ryan. It is the last film version of Clancy's novels to feature Harrison Ford as Ryan and James Earl Jones as Vice Admiral James Greer, as well as the final one directed by Noyce.

As in the novel, Ryan is appointed U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Acting Deputy Director, and discovers he is being kept in the dark by colleagues who are conducting a covert war against drug lords in Colombia, apparently with the approval of the President of the United States. The film premiered in theaters in the United States on August 3, 1994, and was a major financial success, earning over $200 million at the box office.

Plot

A U.S. Coast Guard patrol boat stops a suspicious yacht, discovering that an American businessman and his family have been murdered by several men operating the craft. The murdered man happens to have been a close friend of the President. President Bennett (Moffat) learns that the man was murdered because of his ties to a drug cartel, having skimmed over $650 million from it. The President tells James Cutter (Yulin), his National Security Advisor, that Colombian drug cartels represent a "clear and present danger" to the U.S., indirectly giving him unofficial permission to kill the men responsible for his friend's murder. Jack Ryan (Ford) is appointed Deputy Director of Intelligence and is asked to go before the U.S. Congress to request increased funding for ongoing (CIA) operations in Colombia.

Seeking to keep Ryan out of the loop, Cutter turns to the CIA's Deputy Director for Operations Bob Ritter (Czerny), who secures a document giving him permission to act as he sees fit to take down the cartel. Ritter assembles a black-operations team with the help of John Clark (Dafoe). The team inserts itself in Colombia, with Clark running the logistics, and Captain Ricardo Ramirez (Bratt) leading a ground force in search-and-destroy missions against various drug cartels.

The head of one of the drug gangs, Ernesto Escobedo (Sandoval), is enraged at having lost over $650 million as a result of the freezing of assets, and has his intelligence officer, Félix Cortez (de Almeida), try to retrieve the funds. Through a contact, Cortez discovers (FBI) Director Emil Jacobs (Tammi) is visiting Colombia to negotiate with the local attorney general concerning the frozen money. Meanwhile however, Cortez's seeks to sow distrust among the leaders of the cartel, believing he can assume control of the group following the gang war that will result.

Cortez brokers a deal with Cutter. Cortez will assassinate Escobedo and take over the cartel, then reduce drug shipments to the U.S. and allow American law enforcement to arrest some of his workers at regular intervals so as to make it appear as if the U.S. is winning the drug war. In exchange, Cutter will shut down all operations in Colombia and allow Cortez to subdue Clark's soldiers. Cutter agrees and orders Ritter to get rid of all evidence of their operations and cut off the troops in Colombia from all support. Ryan is told about the meeting between Cutter and Cortez. He hacks Ritter's computer and discovers the conspiracy unfolding in Colombia.

The black-ops team is ambushed in Colombia, as Ryan arrives and finds Clark, offering assistance. They fly to where the soldiers were attacked and find the squad's sniper, Domingo Chavez (Cruz), who tells them two of his unit members are imprisoned and the rest are dead. Ryan visits Escobedo's mansion and tells him what Cortez has been doing. Enraged, Escobedo accuses Cortez of treachery. One of Cortez's men kills Escobedo and his henchmen, but is shot by Chávez. Ryan, Clark, and Chávez rescue the prisoners, kill Cortez, and escape.

Ryan confronts the President and tells him he intends to inform the Congressional Oversight Committee about the conspiracy despite the damage it could do to his career. He walks out of the Oval Office and begins his testimony to Congress.

Cast

Supporting actor Willem Dafoe, who portrayed the fictional character John Clark

Production

Development

John Milius says he wrote the first draft and later wrote the sequence where Jack Ryan is ambushed in SUVs. He says the original ending had Cortez come to Washington to kill the national security adviser, only to then be killed in a mugging by drug addicts.[1]

Music

The film's musical score was composed by James Horner. Milan Records released an album featuring selections from the score on August 2, 1994.[2]

An expanded two-disc collector's edition was released in 2013 by specialty label Intrada Records. The new version now includes the complete score by Horner, remixed from the original scoring master tapes with cues appearing in the same order as they appear in the film.

Clear and Present Danger - Music from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Film score by James Horner
Released August 2, 1994 (original), January 1, 2013 (expanded version)
Length 50:35 (original release), 98:38 (expanded version)
Label Milan Records (original), Intrada Records (expanded version)
Jack Ryan soundtrack chronology

Patriot Games
(1992)		 Clear and Present Danger
(1994)		 The Sum of All Fears
(2002)

Reception

Critical response

The film received positive reviews from critics; it holds a 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 39 critics.[3] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average out of 100 to critics' reviews, Clear and Present Danger received a score of 74 based on 14 reviews.[4]

Noyce, who also directed "Patriot Games," manages to keep the complex story lines from snarling even though he relies heavily on crosscutting. The technique, which he uses ingeniously here, enlivens scenes that are technologically driven and potentially deadly.

“
”
—Rita Kempley, writing for The Washington Post[5]

Mick LaSalle, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, commented how it "delights in an almost boyish way in the trappings of power: rocket launchers and high-tech missiles, flags, ceremony and political double-speak."[6] In contrast however, James Berardinelli, who wrote for ReelViews, remarked, "Clear and Present Danger is all plot and no characters. The people running around on screen have about as much depth as the sheen of sweat on Harrison Ford's forehead. Jack Ryan is the most disappointing of all. He's disgustingly virtuous: a flawless fighter for good and justice, a Superman without the cape. I spent half the movie wondering if this guy was ever going to show anything to mark him as vaguely human."[7] In Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy, author Matthew Alford formulated a critique of the film, pointing out that supporting characters like Cutter and Ritter are pointedly squeamish about the use of force. He queried, "Where is this abundance of sensitivity from the US national security apparatus towards the people of Latin America in the real world?". He concluded, "The answers are all too obvious, except to a Hollywood hooked on schmaltz, willfully ignorant of reality and in thrall to power."[8]

Box office

Clear and Present Danger opened strongly at the U.S. box office, grossing $20,348,017 in its first weekend and holding the top spot for two weeks.[9] It eventually went on to gross an estimated $122,187,717 in the U.S., and $93,700,000 in foreign revenue for a worldwide total of $215,887,717.

Accolades

The film was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Sound Mixing (Donald O. Mitchell, Michael Herbick, Frank A. Montaño, and Art Rochester) and Best Sound Editing (John Leveque and Bruce Stambler).[10]

See also

References

Footnotes
  1. ↑ Segaloff, Nat, "John Milius: The Good Fights", Backstory 4: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 1970s and 1980s, Ed. Patrick McGilligan, Uni of California 2006 p 310
  2. ↑ "Clear and Present Danger - Audio CD". Amazon.com. Retrieved 2014-02-03.
  3. ↑ "Clear and Present Danger". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2014-01-27.
  4. ↑ "Clear and Present Danger". Metacritic. Retrieved 2014-01-27.
  5. ↑ "Clear and Present Danger". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2014-01-27.
  6. ↑ "Ford Vs. the Cynics in 'Danger'". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2014-01-27.
  7. ↑ "Clear and Present Danger". ReelViews. Retrieved 2014-01-27.
  8. ↑ Alford, Reel Power, p. 91
  9. ↑ "Clear and Present Danger". boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved 2014-01-27.
  10. ↑ "The 67th Academy Awards (1995) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-10-23.

External links