- Title: The Hunt for Red October / Patriot Games / Clear and Present Danger / The Sum of All Fears / Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
- IMDb: link | link | link | link | link
All five feature-length Jack Ryan movies are collected featuring the heroic actions of Tom Clancy’s thinking man’s hero, a CIA analyst turned action star, saving the world. The best of the bunch remains the first. The Hunt for Red October stars Alec Baldwin as the only man who correctly guesses the true intentions of a Soviet captain (Sean Connery) stealing an untrackable nuclear submarine with plans to defect. Not only is it the best story of this collection but director John McTiernan ratches up the tension to great effect making the most of both his stars.
Taking Baldwin’s place in the next two films is Harrison Ford dealing with Irish terrorists in Patriot Games (a film I’m always confusing aspects of with The Devil’s Own) and standing up against his own government who are conducting an illegal war against drugs in Colombia in Clear and Present Danger.
After nearly a decade, The Sum of All Fears was an attempt to reboot the franchise with Ben Affleck in the role. It’s the weakest of the bunch which has as much to do with the story involving Neo-Nazis out to start a war between the United States and Russia as it does with the change in leading man. It’s a slight drop-off from the Ford films, but all three work, more or less, as solid Cold War action flicks.
The final film of the collection, the last story adapted prior to the Amazon series, works as a bit of an origin story for Jack Ryan casting Chris Pine as Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit who gets thrown into his first field mission to stop a Russian (Kenneth Branagh, who also directs) from perpetrating both a financial and physical terrorist take on United States soil. The most underrated of the films, withs ome great location shooting, the best opposing character since The Hunt For Red October, and a strong supporting performance by Keira Knightley as the woman who would become Jack’s wife, it makes good bookend for the series ending on a high note (read the full review)