Sum Of All Fears

Year: 2002

Grade: B+

Country: USA

Director: Robinson

Review

a good jack ryan film, this time with ben affleck. ryan is like james bond, but he usually does less killing and is more of a reluctant hero. odd in that you would think bond, the brit, would be more like ryan and vise versa. i guess american is the new british anyway so really it’s just a matter of timing.

anyway, i first watched this in the theater in 2002 and it sorta blew me away when 2/3 into the film a nuke went off in baltimore almost killing the president. i can’t think of any non-cold war era films that do something like that on american soil. red dawn, dr. strangelove, and the day after were all in the 60s and 80s when we hated the russians and they had more (or as many) nukes as us. at any rate, i find that most of the film is fairly accurate, though the end does move into hollywood drama land with ryan more or less saving the entire civilized world. this is a step below hunt for red october and crimson tide, but still a fine film.