Summer Cinema: ‘Sum of All Fears’
Americans are obsessed with terrorism and acts of violence. My friend is a diabetic with a pump. She hooks it into her upper arm, and when she wears a short-sleeved shirt, the tube her medication runs through hangs below her shirt. The other day she was in a grocery store and woman approached her and asked her if she was wired with a bomb.
Of course she wasn’t, but that woman was genuinely worried the events in the news were going to invade her own private world. The newest, action-packed movie based on a Tom Clancy novel is just the opposite ? no one suspects it could happen, but it does.
Perhaps that is what has always scared me just a bit about Tom Clancy and his novels ? they are so realistic. They are circumstances that if actually existed could lead up to the events dramatized.
The events that lead up to the crisis in “Sum of All Fears” could actually happen, and in a world still recovering from the effects of Sept. 11, the scenario was more scary than entertaining.
“Fears” is another Jack Ryan movie, but since Alec Baldwin dropped out after “The Hunt For Red October” and Harrison Ford is either to busy or to old to continue in the role, Ben Affleck has taken over as the CIA historian turned adventurer. Of course this meant twisting some of the plot elements to fit the younger star, but 80 percent of the people who view the movie won’t have read the books anyway and won’t care.
The story centers around a group of men from around the world who purchase and detonate a 20-plus year old nuclear weapon in the hopes of starting a war between Russia and America so the super powers can “take each other out.”
Affleck (as Ryan) gets pushed into events by CIA director William Cabot (Morgan Freeman) because of a paper he wrote on the new Russian president. He eventually travels to Russia twice in an effort to track down the bomb before the presidents of the two countries can destroy each other with their arsenals of mushroom cloud inducers.
The movie had a decent plot and enough special effects explosions for the testosterone crowd. The love story between Jack and girlfriend Cathy (Bridget Moynahan) was meant to satisfy the gentler crowd (think “Armageddon,” cheesy, but it works).
My major complaint with the film was with sensitivity. I think the majority of the country has been able to move on after the events of Sept. 11 which took so many lives and still has our country on edge. However, there were more than a few in the theater who cringed when the blast site (central Baltimore) was referred to as “Ground Zero.”
Overall, however, the Jack Ryan movies still can hold their weight even with lack-luster acting (Affleck) and bad timing (Sept. 11). Some are calling Affleck the next Harrison Ford, but don’t flatter him, he’ll make more movies.
Grade: B