Patriot Games (1992) Paramount/Action RT: 116 minutes Rated R (language, strong violence, brief sexuality) Director: Phillip Noyce Screenplay: W. Peter Iliff and Donald Stewart Music: James Horner Cinematography: Donald McAlpine Release date: June 5, 1992 (US) Cast: Harrison Ford, Anne Archer, Sean Bean, Patrick Bergin, Thora Birch, James Earl Jones, James Fox, Polly Walker, Samuel L. Jackson, J.E. Freeman, Richard Harris. Box Office: $83.4M (US)/$178.1M (World)
Rating: ****
The success of 1990’s outstanding The Hunt for Red October prompted the suits at Paramount to greenlight a second Tom Clancy adaptation. This time it’s Patriot Games, an action-thriller that pits CIA analyst Jack Ryan against an Irish terrorist group. Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones) takes over the role from Alec Baldwin and it couldn’t have worked out any better. He nails it perfectly. Ford has always been a reliable action hero and that’s exactly what Ryan is this time. He takes a more active role in the goings-on.
Since we last saw him, Ryan has retired from the CIA. He’s now a history professor at the US Naval Academy. He’s on a working vacation with his family in London, surgeon wife Cathy (Archer, Narrow Margin) and young daughter Sally (Birch, Ghost World), when he witnesses an attack on members of the British Royal Family. He jumps into action and saves their lives, killing one of the assailants and capturing another while being wounded in the process.
What appears to be an act of the IRA (Irish Republican Army) is actually the work of a violent renegade faction of the group. The terrorist that Ryan captures is Sean Miller (Bean, GoldenEye). It was his brother who got killed. He swears revenge against Ryan and it looks like he will make good on his threat after he manages to escape custody.
The leader of the fictitious ULA (Ulster Liberation Army) is Kevin O’Donnell (Patrick Bergin, Sleeping with the Enemy). He tries to convince Sean to stay true to their cause and forget about his vendetta. He won’t, of course. He makes his way to Maryland where he goes after Ryan’s family. He causes Cathy to crash her car, injuring both mother and daughter, the child critically. This pushes Ryan over the edge. He asks his friend and boss Admiral Greer (Jones, Conan the Barbarian) to reinstate him so he can put Miller down for good.
Patriot Games is pure action. There’s nothing terribly deep or cerebral about it. Yes, politics do play into the story. The screenplay gets into stuff about the IRA and Sinn Fein, the latter represented by Richard Harris’ (Camelot) character who proves he has a conscience by providing Ryan with a key piece of information leading to the terrorists’ location.
Director Phillip Noyce (Dead Calm) keeps things moving a nice clip with a few well-mounted action scenes. He also keeps it smart. It would be easy to resort to clichés like showing the destruction of a terrorist camp, but Noyce doesn’t do that. Instead, we get to watch it unfold on a computer screen via a spy satellite utilizing heat-sensitive photography. This being a Tom Clancy story, it’s going to be more high-tech than the average action movie. The only time Noyce falls back on convention is the finale, a cat-and-mouse game in a dark house during a rainstorm. It’s the biggest cliché of them all, but I don’t mind since the rest of Patriot Games is so good.
Now that Ryan has made the movie from brainy analyst to action hero, it makes sense to put an actor like Ford in the role. He is more than capable of holding his own against the worst humanity has to offer. Archer does a fine job as the wife who fully supports her husband rejoining the CIA after the s*** hits too close to home. She says, “You get him, Jack. I don’t care what you have to do. Just get him.” Spoken like the wife of a true POed action hero. Birch has some great scenes as young Sally. Jones exudes a strong sense of authority in every role he plays. Bean makes a perfect villain. Harris, in just a few scenes, shows he’s still one of the finest actors of the 20th century. James Fox (A Passage to India) is great as Lord Holmes, the English royal saved by Ryan’s heroic actions.
I like that Patriot Games assumes its audience is intelligent. It doesn’t pander to the lowest common denominator. It crackles with suspense with a gripping story of politics and revenge. At the same time, it doesn’t get weighed down by its subject matter. It’s excellent escapist entertainment. What else would you expect from a summer movie starring Harrison Ford? I don’t know how it compares to the book, but the movie is terrific.
