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The Sum of All Fears (film)
Encyclopedia
The Sum of All Fears is a 2002 American action film
/political thriller
directed by Phil Alden Robinson
and based on the novel The Sum of All Fears
by Tom Clancy
. Starring Ben Affleck
and Morgan Freeman
it was released by Paramount Pictures
in the United States on May 31, 2002.
This fourth film in the Jack Ryan film series is a reboot set in 2002, with Ryan portrayed as younger than in the 1990 film The Hunt for Red October
(set in 1984), and that film's sequels, Patriot Games
and Clear and Present Danger
.
, in which a single Israeli A-4
jet carrying a nuclear weapon
is shot down over the Syrian desert. The bomb, over time, is consumed by the sand and disappears.
The film narrative then shifts forward 29 years and inside a secret government bunker in Mount Weather, Virginia, where President J. Robert Fowler (James Cromwell
) and some of his senior national security
advisors, including Central Intelligence Agency
Director
William Cabot (Freeman) conducting a top-secret military simulation
of a Russian nuclear attack against the United States.
In 2002, the bomb is found in Syria by a couple of scrap dealers and unwittingly sold to an arms dealer named Olson (Colm Feore
), who in turn sells it to an Austrian neo-Nazi named Richard Dressler (Alan Bates
) for 50 million dollars on the black market.
Meanwhile, the United States becomes concerned when Alexander Nemerov (Ciarán Hinds
) becomes the new president of the Russian Federation
. Nemerov is seen as a hard-liner with regard to his control over the Russian military. The Director of Central Intelligence seeks the opinion of CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Affleck), who has done extensive research on Nemerov's life and career. While on a routine inspection of Russia's nuclear weapons facilities, Cabot and Ryan are invited to the Kremlin
to meet with Nemerov personally. Tension arises when Nemerov likens the United States' involvement in Russian-Chechen affairs to "sleeping with another man's wife", with Russia the betrayed and vengeful husband. Nonetheless, Nemerov appears to like Jack Ryan after Ryan compliments Nemerov in Russian.
During the inspection, Ryan notices that three senior Russian nuclear technicians are not present at the facility. Nemerov's aide Anatoli Grushkov (Michael Byrne
) attempts to assuage Ryan's concerns by telling him that the three scientists are out sick, on vacation, and recently deceased, respectively. Cabot's covert informant in Moscow, known by his codename 'Spinnaker', tells Cabot that Grushkov's explanations are false, and that the whereabouts of the three scientists are truly unknown to the Russian government. Upon arrival in Washington, Cabot sends CIA operative John Clark (Liev Schreiber
) to track down the missing scientists. Clark discovers the three scientists in Ukraine
constructing Dressler's bomb.
When President Nemerov takes responsibility for an unauthorized gas-warfare attack on Grozny
, the capital city of Chechnya, President Fowler and his administration become concerned with the volatility of Nemerov's military policies and respond by sending NATO peacekeeping troops to Chechnya. Jack Ryan correctly believes that Nemerov took responsibility for the act only to save face before the radicals in Russia, and loses credibility from the White House. Meanwhile, the nuclear bomb arrives in a crate in Baltimore, Maryland, and is placed at an American football stadium disguised as a cigarette vending machine.
In a recording, Dressler reveals his intentions in placing the bomb in Baltimore: frustrated and angered with the American and Russian paternalism over smaller European nations, Dressler has resolved to destroy both nations, much as Adolf Hitler
desired to in World War II. Dressler notes that Hitler was "not crazy", but "stupid" in that he tried to fight the Soviet Union and the United States simultaneously. Rather, he suggests one must get "America and Russia to fight each other... and destroy each other." By detonating a nuclear weapon on American soil, Dressler and his associates plan to aggravate an already tense relationship between the two superpowers to the point of full-blown nuclear war.
Ryan attempts to inform Cabot that the bomb is in Baltimore, but it turns out that President Fowler and Cabot are attending a football game in the stadium where the bomb is planted. The noise from the game makes it too difficult for Cabot to hear Ryan's warning. After several tries, Ryan gets the warning across and Cabot orders the Secret Service
agents to rush the President out of the stadium. The President manages to escape the stadium, but only moments before the bomb detonates, destroying a significant part of the city and scattering the President's motorcade.
After the explosion, President Fowler is rescued by heliborne United States Marines
, and taken airborne on a Boeing E-4B Advanced Airborne Command Post
with his cabinet. Immediately, they fear that the bomb was Russian. Ryan's girlfriend Dr. Catherine Muller (Bridget Moynahan
) survives the blast and Ryan survives a helicopter crash, but Cabot dies later at a hospital.
After being informed about the explosion, Dressler telephones one of his associates, a corrupt general in the Russian Air Force
. In order to further aggravate the situation, the general orders his Tu-22M Backfire pilots to strike an American aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis with standoff missiles in the North Sea
under the false pretext that a U.S. ICBM
has destroyed Moscow. The strike heavily damages the Stennis and renders the carrier unable to launch aircraft. In response, American President Fowler orders three or more United States Air Force
F-16 fighter jets to attack the originating Russian air base. Tensions escalate as trust between Fowler and Nemerov rapidly deteriorates. To prove that he is willing to take the exchange to the next level, Fowler orders SNAPCOUNT, the military alert level for maximum readiness, preparing to launch a massive nuclear strike on Russian military targets. Seeing that the U.S. has dispatched B-2 Spirit
stealth bombers and nuclear submarines
, Nemerov prepares to launch his ICBMs on the United States.
Ryan first learns about the origin of the bomb after the Army Radiation Assessment Team conducts an isotopic fingerprint analysis of air samples around ground zero
in Baltimore. It is concluded that the plutonium
for the Baltimore bomb was manufactured in Savannah River nuclear plant
in South Carolina in 1968, thus indicating that the original fissile material was of American, not Russian, origin. He tries, unsuccessfully, to communicate this information to President Fowler. After being with the dying William Cabot, Ryan takes Cabot's personal effects, and with Cabot's text messenger, asks Spinnaker how the American plutonium ended up in a Russian bomb. Spinnaker tells him that the United States had secretly managed to send it to Israel for their nuclear weapons program. Meanwhile, John Clark learns from Ghazi, one of the scrap dealers who is dying from being exposed to the bomb's radiation, that it was Olson who bought the bomb and that he lives in Damascus. Ryan's co-workers in the CIA infiltrate Olson's computer and download files that implicate Dressler as the person who bought the plutonium and who is behind the Baltimore attack. Ryan learns of this from his team.
Ryan gets to the Baltimore harbor docks, only to find Dressler's American contact Lod Mason murdered by Dressler's German hitman Haft. Haft attacks Ryan, but Ryan manages to get the upper hand on him. Ryan tries to force Haft to talk, but is thwarted as the Maryland State Police arrive. Via a Maryland State Police helicopter, Ryan manages to get to The Pentagon
, where he is able to communicate the truth to President Nemerov. Relying on Ryan's word, Nemerov proposes a plan to Fowler to a stand down. Fowler follows suit, and nuclear war is averted.
The two presidents meet and make peace as agents of both governments hunt down and assassinate the terrorist conspirators. John Clark slits Olson's throat, Russian agents pursue and shoot the traitorous General Dubinin in a snow-covered forest, and as Grushkov looks on, Dressler has his bodyguard start his car engine to rule out a car bomb, only to be killed after he replaces him in the car, due to him pushing in the cigarette lighter, which actually triggers the bomb.
In Washington, D.C. Presidents Fowler and Nemerov address the Baltimore tragedy and the future of weapons of mass destruction during a speech on the White House lawn. In a nearby park, Ryan and Cathy Muller are having a picnic when they are approached by Grushkov. It is revealed that Grushkov is Spinnaker: Cabot's covert source in Moscow. Grushkov gives Dr. Muller a "modest gift" for her engagement to Ryan. Muller and Ryan are perplexed, as they have not told anyone of their engagement. Ryan asks Grushkov how he could possibly know this secret, but he simply smiles, shrugs and walks away.
The original terrorists in the novel were Arab nationalists
, but in the movie, they are changed to neo-fascists. A common misconception is that this was done as a reaction to the September 11 attacks. However, the movie was filmed months before 9/11; it finished filming in June 2001.
On the "making-of" DVD extra, the director says that this was purely for elements relating to the plot, as Arab terrorists would not be able to plausibly accomplish all that was necessary for the story to work. The group Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR) did mount a two-year lobbying campaign that ended on January 26, 2001, against using "Muslim villains", as the original book version did. Director Phil Alden Robinson is quoted in a letter to CAI] saying "I hope you will be reassured that I have no intention of promoting negative images of Muslims or Arabs, and I wish you the best in your continuing efforts to combat discrimination".
Screenwriter Dan Pyne claims that the decision to not use Arab terrorists was "possibly because that has become a cliché. At the time that I started writing the Sum Of All Fears, Joerg Haider was just starting to come into play in Austria. And simultaneous with that, I think, there was some neo-nationalist activity in Holland, and there was stuff going on in Spain and in Italy. So it seemed like a logical and lasting idea that would be universal." It has also been noted that a larger percent of profits stems from international audiences, and American filmmakers work to avoid alienating large segments of this customer base.
reports that 59% of critics gave the film positive reviews and that the average rating was 6/10 based on a total of 166 reviews counted. Peter Travers
criticised Affleck's performance, saying it "merely creates an outline for a role he still needs to grow into, a role that Ford
effortlessly filled with authority." Richard Roeper
felt the movie "is almost impossible to follow -- and there's something cringe-inducing about seeing an American football stadium nuked as pop entertainment." Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune
called it "an implausible apocalypse without depth or resonance", while Peter Rainer of New York Magazine felt the "movie has been upstaged by the sum of our fears."
A few positive reviews came from The Argus
, who praised Freeman for giving "the William Cabot character such validity." Roger Ebert
felt that "the use of the neo-Nazis is politically correct
: Best to invent villains who won't offend any audiences." But he also feels "Jack Ryan's one-man actions in post-bomb Baltimore are unlikely and way too well-timed."
According to Box Office Mojo, the movie made U.S. $118,907,036 and $75,014,336 in foreign totals, well recovering its $68 million production costs.
Action film
Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...
/political thriller
Political thriller
A political thriller is a thriller that is set against the backdrop of a political power struggle. They usually involve various extra-legal plots, designed to give political power to someone, while his opponents try to stop him. They can involve national or international political scenarios....
directed by Phil Alden Robinson
Phil Alden Robinson
Phil Alden Robinson is an American film director and screenwriter whose films include Field of Dreams, Sneakers and The Sum of All Fears.-Life and career:...
and based on the novel The Sum of All Fears
The Sum of All Fears
The Sum of All Fears is the best-selling thriller novel by Dan Fogelman and Tom Clancy, and part of the Jack Ryan series. It was the fourth book of the series to be turned into a film. An interesting historical note is that this book was released just days before the Moscow uprising in 1991, which...
by Tom Clancy
Tom Clancy
Thomas Leo "Tom" Clancy, Jr. is an American author, best known for his technically detailed espionage, military science, and techno thriller storylines set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War, along with video games on which he did not work, but which bear his name for licensing and...
. Starring Ben Affleck
Ben Affleck
Benjamin Géza Affleck-Boldt , better known as Ben Affleck, is an American actor, film director, writer, and producer. He became known with his performances in Kevin Smith's films such as Mallrats and Chasing Amy...
and Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman
Morgan Freeman is an American actor, film director, aviator and narrator. He is noted for his reserved demeanor and authoritative speaking voice. Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won...
it was released by Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
in the United States on May 31, 2002.
This fourth film in the Jack Ryan film series is a reboot set in 2002, with Ryan portrayed as younger than in the 1990 film The Hunt for Red October
The Hunt for Red October (film)
The Hunt for Red October is a 1990 thriller film based on the novel of the same name by Tom Clancy. It was directed by John McTiernan and stars Sean Connery as Captain Marko Ramius and Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan...
(set in 1984), and that film's sequels, Patriot Games
Patriot Games (film)
Patriot Games is a 1992 film directed by Phillip Noyce and based on Tom Clancy's the novel of the same name. It is a sequel to the 1990 film The Hunt for Red October. In the movie, Jack Ryan is played by Harrison Ford, Jack's surgeon-wife, Dr...
and Clear and Present Danger
Clear and Present Danger (film)
Clear and Present Danger is a 1994 film directed by Phillip Noyce, based on the book of the same name by Tom Clancy. It is a subsequent release to the 1992 film Patriot Games, which in itself is a subsequent release to the 1990 film The Hunt for Red October.It is the last film to feature Harrison...
.
Plot
The film begins with a sequence inspired by the novel's prologue set during the 1973 Yom Kippur WarYom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War , also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to 25, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria...
, in which a single Israeli A-4
A-4 Skyhawk
The Douglas A-4 Skyhawk is a carrier-capable ground-attack aircraft designed for the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. The delta winged, single-engined Skyhawk was designed and produced by Douglas Aircraft Company, and later McDonnell Douglas. It was originally designated the A4D...
jet carrying a nuclear weapon
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
is shot down over the Syrian desert. The bomb, over time, is consumed by the sand and disappears.
The film narrative then shifts forward 29 years and inside a secret government bunker in Mount Weather, Virginia, where President J. Robert Fowler (James Cromwell
James Cromwell
James Oliver Cromwell is an American film and television actor. Some of his more notable roles are in Babe , for which he earned Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, Star Trek: First Contact , L.A...
) and some of his senior national security
National security
National security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the state through the use of economic, diplomacy, power projection and political power. The concept developed mostly in the United States of America after World War II...
advisors, including Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
Director
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency serves as the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, which is part of the United States Intelligence Community. The Director reports to the Director of National Intelligence . The Director is assisted by the Deputy Director of the Central...
William Cabot (Freeman) conducting a top-secret military simulation
Military simulation
Military simulations, also known informally as war games, are simulations in which theories of warfare can be tested and refined without the need for actual hostilities. Many professional contemporary analysts object to the term wargames as this is generally taken to be referring to the civilian...
of a Russian nuclear attack against the United States.
In 2002, the bomb is found in Syria by a couple of scrap dealers and unwittingly sold to an arms dealer named Olson (Colm Feore
Colm Feore
Colm Feore is an American-born Canadian stage, film and television actor.-Early life:Feore was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Irish parents who lived in Ireland for several years during Feore's early life. The family subsequently moved to Windsor, Ontario, where Feore grew up.After graduating...
), who in turn sells it to an Austrian neo-Nazi named Richard Dressler (Alan Bates
Alan Bates
Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was an English actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he demonstrated his versatility in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving...
) for 50 million dollars on the black market.
Meanwhile, the United States becomes concerned when Alexander Nemerov (Ciarán Hinds
Ciarán Hinds
Ciarán Hinds is an Irish film, television and stage actor. He has built up a reputation as a versatile character actor appearing in such high profile films as Road to Perdition, The Phantom of the Opera, Munich, There Will Be Blood and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. His television roles include...
) becomes the new president of the Russian Federation
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. Nemerov is seen as a hard-liner with regard to his control over the Russian military. The Director of Central Intelligence seeks the opinion of CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Affleck), who has done extensive research on Nemerov's life and career. While on a routine inspection of Russia's nuclear weapons facilities, Cabot and Ryan are invited to the Kremlin
Moscow Kremlin
The Moscow Kremlin , sometimes referred to as simply The Kremlin, is a historic fortified complex at the heart of Moscow, overlooking the Moskva River , Saint Basil's Cathedral and Red Square and the Alexander Garden...
to meet with Nemerov personally. Tension arises when Nemerov likens the United States' involvement in Russian-Chechen affairs to "sleeping with another man's wife", with Russia the betrayed and vengeful husband. Nonetheless, Nemerov appears to like Jack Ryan after Ryan compliments Nemerov in Russian.
During the inspection, Ryan notices that three senior Russian nuclear technicians are not present at the facility. Nemerov's aide Anatoli Grushkov (Michael Byrne
Michael Byrne (actor)
Michael Byrne is an English actor noted for his roles on film and television. He has often been cast in Nazi military roles such as Colonel Vogel in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Obergruppenführer Odilo Globocnik in the BBC radio dramatisation of the novel Fatherland by Robert Harris...
) attempts to assuage Ryan's concerns by telling him that the three scientists are out sick, on vacation, and recently deceased, respectively. Cabot's covert informant in Moscow, known by his codename 'Spinnaker', tells Cabot that Grushkov's explanations are false, and that the whereabouts of the three scientists are truly unknown to the Russian government. Upon arrival in Washington, Cabot sends CIA operative John Clark (Liev Schreiber
Liev Schreiber
Isaac Liev Schreiber , commonly known as Liev Schreiber, is an American actor, producer, director, and screenwriter. He became known during the late 1990s and early 2000s, having initially appeared in several independent films, and later mainstream Hollywood films, including the Scream trilogy of...
) to track down the missing scientists. Clark discovers the three scientists in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
constructing Dressler's bomb.
When President Nemerov takes responsibility for an unauthorized gas-warfare attack on Grozny
Grozny
Grozny is the capital city of the Chechen Republic, Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River. According to the preliminary results of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 271,596; up from 210,720 recorded in the 2002 Census. but still only about two-thirds of 399,688 recorded in the 1989...
, the capital city of Chechnya, President Fowler and his administration become concerned with the volatility of Nemerov's military policies and respond by sending NATO peacekeeping troops to Chechnya. Jack Ryan correctly believes that Nemerov took responsibility for the act only to save face before the radicals in Russia, and loses credibility from the White House. Meanwhile, the nuclear bomb arrives in a crate in Baltimore, Maryland, and is placed at an American football stadium disguised as a cigarette vending machine.
In a recording, Dressler reveals his intentions in placing the bomb in Baltimore: frustrated and angered with the American and Russian paternalism over smaller European nations, Dressler has resolved to destroy both nations, much as Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
desired to in World War II. Dressler notes that Hitler was "not crazy", but "stupid" in that he tried to fight the Soviet Union and the United States simultaneously. Rather, he suggests one must get "America and Russia to fight each other... and destroy each other." By detonating a nuclear weapon on American soil, Dressler and his associates plan to aggravate an already tense relationship between the two superpowers to the point of full-blown nuclear war.
Ryan attempts to inform Cabot that the bomb is in Baltimore, but it turns out that President Fowler and Cabot are attending a football game in the stadium where the bomb is planted. The noise from the game makes it too difficult for Cabot to hear Ryan's warning. After several tries, Ryan gets the warning across and Cabot orders the Secret Service
United States Secret Service
The United States Secret Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency that is part of the United States Department of Homeland Security. The sworn members are divided among the Special Agents and the Uniformed Division. Until March 1, 2003, the Service was part of the United States...
agents to rush the President out of the stadium. The President manages to escape the stadium, but only moments before the bomb detonates, destroying a significant part of the city and scattering the President's motorcade.
After the explosion, President Fowler is rescued by heliborne United States Marines
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...
, and taken airborne on a Boeing E-4B Advanced Airborne Command Post
Boeing E-4
The Boeing E-4 Advanced Airborne Command Post, with a project name of "Nightwatch", is an aircraft operated by the United States Air Force...
with his cabinet. Immediately, they fear that the bomb was Russian. Ryan's girlfriend Dr. Catherine Muller (Bridget Moynahan
Bridget Moynahan
Kathryn Bridget Moynahan , best known as Bridget Moynahan, is an American model and actress. After graduating from Longmeadow High School in 1989, Moynahan pursued a career in modeling. She was signed by a modeling agency, which led her to appear in department store catalogs and the covers of...
) survives the blast and Ryan survives a helicopter crash, but Cabot dies later at a hospital.
After being informed about the explosion, Dressler telephones one of his associates, a corrupt general in the Russian Air Force
Russian Air Force
The Russian Air Force is the air force of Russian Military. It is currently under the command of Colonel General Aleksandr Zelin. The Russian Navy has its own air arm, the Russian Naval Aviation, which is the former Soviet Aviatsiya Voyenno Morskogo Flota , or AV-MF).The Air Force was formed from...
. In order to further aggravate the situation, the general orders his Tu-22M Backfire pilots to strike an American aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis with standoff missiles in the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
under the false pretext that a U.S. ICBM
Intercontinental ballistic missile
An intercontinental ballistic missile is a ballistic missile with a long range typically designed for nuclear weapons delivery...
has destroyed Moscow. The strike heavily damages the Stennis and renders the carrier unable to launch aircraft. In response, American President Fowler orders three or more United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
F-16 fighter jets to attack the originating Russian air base. Tensions escalate as trust between Fowler and Nemerov rapidly deteriorates. To prove that he is willing to take the exchange to the next level, Fowler orders SNAPCOUNT, the military alert level for maximum readiness, preparing to launch a massive nuclear strike on Russian military targets. Seeing that the U.S. has dispatched B-2 Spirit
B-2 Spirit
The Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit is an American heavy bomber with low observable stealth technology designed to penetrate dense anti-aircraft defenses and deploy both conventional and nuclear weapons. The bomber has a crew of two and can drop up to eighty -class JDAM GPS-guided bombs, or sixteen ...
stealth bombers and nuclear submarines
Ohio class submarine
The Ohio class is a class of nuclear-powered submarines used by the United States Navy. The United States has 18 Ohio-class submarines:...
, Nemerov prepares to launch his ICBMs on the United States.
Ryan first learns about the origin of the bomb after the Army Radiation Assessment Team conducts an isotopic fingerprint analysis of air samples around ground zero
Ground zero
The term ground zero describes the point on the Earth's surface closest to a detonation...
in Baltimore. It is concluded that the plutonium
Plutonium
Plutonium is a transuranic radioactive chemical element with the chemical symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, forming a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibits six allotropes and four oxidation...
for the Baltimore bomb was manufactured in Savannah River nuclear plant
Savannah River Site
The Savannah River Site is a nuclear reservation in the United States in the state of South Carolina, located on land in Aiken, Allendale and Barnwell Counties adjacent to the Savannah River, southeast of Augusta, Georgia. The site was built during the 1950s to refine nuclear materials for...
in South Carolina in 1968, thus indicating that the original fissile material was of American, not Russian, origin. He tries, unsuccessfully, to communicate this information to President Fowler. After being with the dying William Cabot, Ryan takes Cabot's personal effects, and with Cabot's text messenger, asks Spinnaker how the American plutonium ended up in a Russian bomb. Spinnaker tells him that the United States had secretly managed to send it to Israel for their nuclear weapons program. Meanwhile, John Clark learns from Ghazi, one of the scrap dealers who is dying from being exposed to the bomb's radiation, that it was Olson who bought the bomb and that he lives in Damascus. Ryan's co-workers in the CIA infiltrate Olson's computer and download files that implicate Dressler as the person who bought the plutonium and who is behind the Baltimore attack. Ryan learns of this from his team.
Ryan gets to the Baltimore harbor docks, only to find Dressler's American contact Lod Mason murdered by Dressler's German hitman Haft. Haft attacks Ryan, but Ryan manages to get the upper hand on him. Ryan tries to force Haft to talk, but is thwarted as the Maryland State Police arrive. Via a Maryland State Police helicopter, Ryan manages to get to The Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
, where he is able to communicate the truth to President Nemerov. Relying on Ryan's word, Nemerov proposes a plan to Fowler to a stand down. Fowler follows suit, and nuclear war is averted.
The two presidents meet and make peace as agents of both governments hunt down and assassinate the terrorist conspirators. John Clark slits Olson's throat, Russian agents pursue and shoot the traitorous General Dubinin in a snow-covered forest, and as Grushkov looks on, Dressler has his bodyguard start his car engine to rule out a car bomb, only to be killed after he replaces him in the car, due to him pushing in the cigarette lighter, which actually triggers the bomb.
In Washington, D.C. Presidents Fowler and Nemerov address the Baltimore tragedy and the future of weapons of mass destruction during a speech on the White House lawn. In a nearby park, Ryan and Cathy Muller are having a picnic when they are approached by Grushkov. It is revealed that Grushkov is Spinnaker: Cabot's covert source in Moscow. Grushkov gives Dr. Muller a "modest gift" for her engagement to Ryan. Muller and Ryan are perplexed, as they have not told anyone of their engagement. Ryan asks Grushkov how he could possibly know this secret, but he simply smiles, shrugs and walks away.
Cast
- Ben AffleckBen AffleckBenjamin Géza Affleck-Boldt , better known as Ben Affleck, is an American actor, film director, writer, and producer. He became known with his performances in Kevin Smith's films such as Mallrats and Chasing Amy...
as Jack RyanJack Ryan (Tom Clancy)John Patrick "Jack" Ryan, Sr. is a fictional character created by Tom Clancy who appears in many of his novels.-Backstory:Born in 1950, Ryan's background is established in Patriot Games and Red Rabbit. His father was Emmet William Ryan , a police homicide lieutenant in Baltimore, and World War II... - Morgan FreemanMorgan FreemanMorgan Freeman is an American actor, film director, aviator and narrator. He is noted for his reserved demeanor and authoritative speaking voice. Freeman has received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption and Invictus and won...
as William Cabot, Director of Central Intelligence - Bridget MoynahanBridget MoynahanKathryn Bridget Moynahan , best known as Bridget Moynahan, is an American model and actress. After graduating from Longmeadow High School in 1989, Moynahan pursued a career in modeling. She was signed by a modeling agency, which led her to appear in department store catalogs and the covers of...
as Dr. Catherine Muller - James CromwellJames CromwellJames Oliver Cromwell is an American film and television actor. Some of his more notable roles are in Babe , for which he earned Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, Star Trek: First Contact , L.A...
as J. Robert Fowler, President of the United States - Liev SchreiberLiev SchreiberIsaac Liev Schreiber , commonly known as Liev Schreiber, is an American actor, producer, director, and screenwriter. He became known during the late 1990s and early 2000s, having initially appeared in several independent films, and later mainstream Hollywood films, including the Scream trilogy of...
as John Clark - Michael ByrneMichael Byrne (actor)Michael Byrne is an English actor noted for his roles on film and television. He has often been cast in Nazi military roles such as Colonel Vogel in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Obergruppenführer Odilo Globocnik in the BBC radio dramatisation of the novel Fatherland by Robert Harris...
as Anatoli Grushkov - Colm FeoreColm FeoreColm Feore is an American-born Canadian stage, film and television actor.-Early life:Feore was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Irish parents who lived in Ireland for several years during Feore's early life. The family subsequently moved to Windsor, Ontario, where Feore grew up.After graduating...
as Olson - Alan BatesAlan BatesSir Alan Arthur Bates CBE was an English actor, who came to prominence in the 1960s, a time of high creativity in British cinema, when he demonstrated his versatility in films ranging from the popular children’s story Whistle Down the Wind to the "kitchen sink" drama A Kind of Loving...
as Richard Dressler - Ron RifkinRon RifkinRon Rifkin is an American actor. He is best-known for his roles as Arvin Sloane on the spy drama Alias and as Saul Holden on the American family drama Brothers & Sisters.-Personal life:...
as Sidney Owens, Secretary of StateUnited States Secretary of StateThe United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence... - Ciarán HindsCiarán HindsCiarán Hinds is an Irish film, television and stage actor. He has built up a reputation as a versatile character actor appearing in such high profile films as Road to Perdition, The Phantom of the Opera, Munich, There Will Be Blood and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. His television roles include...
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Deviations from the book
While the basic plot was the same, there were significant changes from the book. Noting these substantial changes, in the commentary track on the DVD release, Tom Clancy jokingly introduces himself as "the author of the book that he [Phil Alden Robinson, who is present with Clancy] ignored".The original terrorists in the novel were Arab nationalists
Arab nationalism
Arab nationalism is a nationalist ideology celebrating the glories of Arab civilization, the language and literature of the Arabs, calling for rejuvenation and political union in the Arab world...
, but in the movie, they are changed to neo-fascists. A common misconception is that this was done as a reaction to the September 11 attacks. However, the movie was filmed months before 9/11; it finished filming in June 2001.
On the "making-of" DVD extra, the director says that this was purely for elements relating to the plot, as Arab terrorists would not be able to plausibly accomplish all that was necessary for the story to work. The group Council on American-Islamic Relations
Council on American-Islamic Relations
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is America's largest Muslim civil liberties advocacy organization that deals with civil advocacy and promotes human rights...
(CAIR) did mount a two-year lobbying campaign that ended on January 26, 2001, against using "Muslim villains", as the original book version did. Director Phil Alden Robinson is quoted in a letter to CAI] saying "I hope you will be reassured that I have no intention of promoting negative images of Muslims or Arabs, and I wish you the best in your continuing efforts to combat discrimination".
Screenwriter Dan Pyne claims that the decision to not use Arab terrorists was "possibly because that has become a cliché. At the time that I started writing the Sum Of All Fears, Joerg Haider was just starting to come into play in Austria. And simultaneous with that, I think, there was some neo-nationalist activity in Holland, and there was stuff going on in Spain and in Italy. So it seemed like a logical and lasting idea that would be universal." It has also been noted that a larger percent of profits stems from international audiences, and American filmmakers work to avoid alienating large segments of this customer base.
Reception
The film received mixed to positive reviews. As of November 2009, Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reports that 59% of critics gave the film positive reviews and that the average rating was 6/10 based on a total of 166 reviews counted. Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Peter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.-Career:...
criticised Affleck's performance, saying it "merely creates an outline for a role he still needs to grow into, a role that Ford
Harrison Ford
Harrison Ford is an American film actor and producer. He is famous for his performances as Han Solo in the original Star Wars trilogy and as the title character of the Indiana Jones film series. Ford is also known for his roles as Rick Deckard in Blade Runner, John Book in Witness and Jack Ryan in...
effortlessly filled with authority." Richard Roeper
Richard Roeper
Richard E. Roeper is an American columnist and film critic for The Chicago Sun-Times and now a co-host on The Roe Conn Show on WLS-AM...
felt the movie "is almost impossible to follow -- and there's something cringe-inducing about seeing an American football stadium nuked as pop entertainment." Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
called it "an implausible apocalypse without depth or resonance", while Peter Rainer of New York Magazine felt the "movie has been upstaged by the sum of our fears."
A few positive reviews came from The Argus
The Argus (Fremont)
The Argus was a newspaper in the town of Fremont, California. Floyd L. Sparks was the longtime owner of The Argus, along with the Daily Review and the Tri-Valley Herald...
, who praised Freeman for giving "the William Cabot character such validity." Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
felt that "the use of the neo-Nazis is politically correct
Politically Correct
Politically Correct may refer to:*Political correctness, language, ideas, policies, or behaviour seeking to minimize offence to groups of people-See also:*Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, book by James Finn Garner, published in 1994...
: Best to invent villains who won't offend any audiences." But he also feels "Jack Ryan's one-man actions in post-bomb Baltimore are unlikely and way too well-timed."
According to Box Office Mojo, the movie made U.S. $118,907,036 and $75,014,336 in foreign totals, well recovering its $68 million production costs.