Patriot Games (1992)
January 31, 2024 11:35 AM - Subscribe
When CIA analyst Jack Ryan interferes with an IRA assassination, a renegade faction targets him and his family for revenge.
When former CIA agent Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford) hampers an IRA terrorist attack in London, he kills one of the terrorists. The dead man's brother, another member of the group named Sean Miller (Sean Bean), is arrested but quickly escapes. Vowing revenge against Ryan, Miller travels to the United States, where he forces Ryan's wife (Anne Archer) and daughter (Thora Birch) into a car accident that badly injures them. This convinces Ryan to rejoin the CIA in order to track down Miller.
Judith Lewis: But I think what really rankled him was Boyce's more highly developed sense of psychological accuracy; where Clancy's characters were cardboard, Noyce's are as well-rounded as this kid of action flick has room for. Even from the early rushes, Clancy could probably tell that Patriot Games the movie was well on its way to being ever so much more interesting than Patriot Games the book. He must have recognized that while Noyce was playing down the author's notorious war-toy wanking, he was making the people more complicated. And to a write like Clancy, complicated people only slow things down.
. . .
Patriot Games is hardly original. It's a shoot-'em-up formula, whose mechanics Noyce happens to understand adequately enough to keep the pot boiling. What distinguishes his movie from the pack, though, goes deeper than mechanics. The film's clues to the villain's soul and the protagonists' flaws set up a moral quandary that involves its audience on a level beyond suspense. Noyce knows that even hack thrillers deserve a complicated treatment on the screen, even if the hack raises hell about it
John Scalzi: The standout scene has Ryan at the cIA building, watching a British commando raid on an IRA camp photographed by a passing satellite. What explosions and death are seen look like a video game, and it's up to Ryan (and Ford) to communicate the horror of what's going on. He does.
Moreover, the film is as much a mystery as an action film. Before Ryan and the CIA can get at the terrorists, they have to find them, a process that slows the movie down, but one that I found extremely interesting. If the terrorists haven't got their act together, at least there's some logical thinking going on at the CIA.
As much as the initial premise of the film bugs me, I enjoyed "Patriot Games" as more intelligent and carefully considered than most action films. A bothersome premise doesn't have to ruin the fun.
Patti Aliventi: Having not read the book, I could thoroughly enjoy this movie. It creates an air of suspense throughout, building the tension as Ryan learns that Miller is after his wife and daughter. It also does well building the scene of the attempt on Ryan himself, getting the viewer inside the head of Jack as he’s walking to his car and his instincts are piqued.
Ford is fantastic in the role, being able to change from a loving husband and father to serious operative as well as pulling off the action sequences. Anne Archer as his wife is just as believable in a way that only a more mature cast can handle. James Earl Jones is back as Admiral Greer and was also excellent, as was Samuel L. Jackson portraying Ryan’s friend and Navy officer, Robby Jackson.
Sean Bean is the one who really creates the atmosphere for this film as Miller becomes obsessed with Jack Ryan and his family. He doesn’t take the character over the top, but still oozes a degree of unhealthy fixation on Ryan. Were Miller just to do what he set out to do originally he probably would have been successful, but the diversion of Ryan proves too much for him. Bean Portrays this well and I haven’t seen him in a role yet that I find fault with his performance.
Trailer
When former CIA agent Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford) hampers an IRA terrorist attack in London, he kills one of the terrorists. The dead man's brother, another member of the group named Sean Miller (Sean Bean), is arrested but quickly escapes. Vowing revenge against Ryan, Miller travels to the United States, where he forces Ryan's wife (Anne Archer) and daughter (Thora Birch) into a car accident that badly injures them. This convinces Ryan to rejoin the CIA in order to track down Miller.
Judith Lewis: But I think what really rankled him was Boyce's more highly developed sense of psychological accuracy; where Clancy's characters were cardboard, Noyce's are as well-rounded as this kid of action flick has room for. Even from the early rushes, Clancy could probably tell that Patriot Games the movie was well on its way to being ever so much more interesting than Patriot Games the book. He must have recognized that while Noyce was playing down the author's notorious war-toy wanking, he was making the people more complicated. And to a write like Clancy, complicated people only slow things down.
. . .
Patriot Games is hardly original. It's a shoot-'em-up formula, whose mechanics Noyce happens to understand adequately enough to keep the pot boiling. What distinguishes his movie from the pack, though, goes deeper than mechanics. The film's clues to the villain's soul and the protagonists' flaws set up a moral quandary that involves its audience on a level beyond suspense. Noyce knows that even hack thrillers deserve a complicated treatment on the screen, even if the hack raises hell about it
John Scalzi: The standout scene has Ryan at the cIA building, watching a British commando raid on an IRA camp photographed by a passing satellite. What explosions and death are seen look like a video game, and it's up to Ryan (and Ford) to communicate the horror of what's going on. He does.
Moreover, the film is as much a mystery as an action film. Before Ryan and the CIA can get at the terrorists, they have to find them, a process that slows the movie down, but one that I found extremely interesting. If the terrorists haven't got their act together, at least there's some logical thinking going on at the CIA.
As much as the initial premise of the film bugs me, I enjoyed "Patriot Games" as more intelligent and carefully considered than most action films. A bothersome premise doesn't have to ruin the fun.
Patti Aliventi: Having not read the book, I could thoroughly enjoy this movie. It creates an air of suspense throughout, building the tension as Ryan learns that Miller is after his wife and daughter. It also does well building the scene of the attempt on Ryan himself, getting the viewer inside the head of Jack as he’s walking to his car and his instincts are piqued.
Ford is fantastic in the role, being able to change from a loving husband and father to serious operative as well as pulling off the action sequences. Anne Archer as his wife is just as believable in a way that only a more mature cast can handle. James Earl Jones is back as Admiral Greer and was also excellent, as was Samuel L. Jackson portraying Ryan’s friend and Navy officer, Robby Jackson.
Sean Bean is the one who really creates the atmosphere for this film as Miller becomes obsessed with Jack Ryan and his family. He doesn’t take the character over the top, but still oozes a degree of unhealthy fixation on Ryan. Were Miller just to do what he set out to do originally he probably would have been successful, but the diversion of Ryan proves too much for him. Bean Portrays this well and I haven’t seen him in a role yet that I find fault with his performance.
Trailer
Kill James Bond covered the Jack Ryan movies during season two. Here's their Patriot Games episode.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 12:17 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 12:17 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]
Coincidentally, I just re-watched this recently for the first time since it came out, and I can't disagree with the reviews above. The action was tense and well-done, but there was also a detective story, and a family story, and nothing was too glamorized. It was surprisingly nuanced, down-to-earth, and character-driven for what would normally be a plot-heavy shoot-em-up.
posted by mrphancy at 12:32 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]
posted by mrphancy at 12:32 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]
This is definitely my favorite Ford Jack Ryan film, though Clear and Present Danger is also great, too.
The satellite raid presages the raid on Bin Laden all these years later. It's a bit uncanny.
I love the dissonance that's created in this scene as Jack is watching it like you should, "Oh my god, I'm watching people get shot and killed," whereas you have other people in the room just hootin' like it's the best video game ever.
posted by Atreides at 12:43 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]
The satellite raid presages the raid on Bin Laden all these years later. It's a bit uncanny.
I love the dissonance that's created in this scene as Jack is watching it like you should, "Oh my god, I'm watching people get shot and killed," whereas you have other people in the room just hootin' like it's the best video game ever.
posted by Atreides at 12:43 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]
This film, along with A Clear and Present Danger (and to a lesser extent The Hunt for Red October) are pure comfort food.
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:13 PM on January 31 [2 favorites]
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:13 PM on January 31 [2 favorites]
It has been some time since I've seen this but I remember it being a serviceable movie that, yes, is only related to the book in the broad strokes.
They at least changed the focus of the attack, in the book it is Charles and Di (though not explicitly named) but in the movie I recall it being a generic royal of some king.
But I guess by the time the movie came out, they were done (or about to be done).
Looks like the movie might be available in HBO, so I'm going to check it out and see how it ages.
They at l
Coincidentally, I just reread Patriot Games last week and I'm not entirely sure Judith Lewis ever read it in the first place.
But then I remember how dismissing Clancy as jingoistic trash was the narrative among a certain type of reviewer.
I had no idea that Scalzi used to do movie reviews. That's pretty amusing.
posted by madajb at 3:04 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]
They at least changed the focus of the attack, in the book it is Charles and Di (though not explicitly named) but in the movie I recall it being a generic royal of some king.
But I guess by the time the movie came out, they were done (or about to be done).
Looks like the movie might be available in HBO, so I'm going to check it out and see how it ages.
They at l
Coincidentally, I just reread Patriot Games last week and I'm not entirely sure Judith Lewis ever read it in the first place.
But then I remember how dismissing Clancy as jingoistic trash was the narrative among a certain type of reviewer.
I had no idea that Scalzi used to do movie reviews. That's pretty amusing.
posted by madajb at 3:04 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]
But then I remember how dismissing Clancy as jingoistic trash was the narrative among a certain type of reviewer.
I mean, it might be lazy but it's not exactly inaccurate...
posted by coriolisdave at 3:43 PM on January 31 [3 favorites]
I mean, it might be lazy but it's not exactly inaccurate...
posted by coriolisdave at 3:43 PM on January 31 [3 favorites]
I mean, it might be lazy but it's not exactly inaccurate...
Sure, sure, I'm not saying they aren't a product of their time and ultimately "America, Hell Yeah!", but there is a surprising amount of nuance in the early Jack Ryan novels at least
posted by madajb at 1:07 AM on February 1
Sure, sure, I'm not saying they aren't a product of their time and ultimately "America, Hell Yeah!", but there is a surprising amount of nuance in the early Jack Ryan novels at least
posted by madajb at 1:07 AM on February 1
I love the dissonance that's created in this scene as Jack is watching it like you should, "Oh my god, I'm watching people get shot and killed," whereas you have other people in the room just hootin' like it's the best video game ever.
That facial reaction Ford/Ryan pulls when some CIA desk jockey declares something like "and that's a kill" between sips of coffee absolutely sells him to me as the character I *want* making intel life or death decisions in those situations, and not someone so divorced from the reality of what they're watching.
posted by Molesome at 1:08 AM on February 1 [3 favorites]
That facial reaction Ford/Ryan pulls when some CIA desk jockey declares something like "and that's a kill" between sips of coffee absolutely sells him to me as the character I *want* making intel life or death decisions in those situations, and not someone so divorced from the reality of what they're watching.
posted by Molesome at 1:08 AM on February 1 [3 favorites]
So I just gave this a rewatch, interesting to do with the novel fresh in mind.
Naturally there is a lot cut out to make a reasonable length movie, but the film follows most of the beats pretty well.
Definitely a solid entry in the thriller/spy genre.
I'd forgotten Samuel L Jackson was in it. Also a blink and you might miss it appearance by Ted Raimi.
posted by madajb at 1:13 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
Naturally there is a lot cut out to make a reasonable length movie, but the film follows most of the beats pretty well.
Definitely a solid entry in the thriller/spy genre.
I'd forgotten Samuel L Jackson was in it. Also a blink and you might miss it appearance by Ted Raimi.
posted by madajb at 1:13 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
Both the movie and the book still slap, which you absolutely cannot say about every movie from 1992 or thriller from 1987. To me, at least, neither feel dusty, though of course each are from their moment in time.
If you haven't read the book and are interested in literary craft, pay attention to the pitch and pacing of individual scenes while reading. It's the top book that Archer and Jockers identify (via computational analysis) in The Bestseller Code as having a regular rhythmic beat, apart from The Da Vinci Code and Fifty Shades of Grey, published in the fifty years preceding their study. Whether "a regular rhythmic beat" is a good thing in popular or literary fiction is another question, of course, but it's a notable feature among truly successful bestselling novels in the U.S.
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:05 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
If you haven't read the book and are interested in literary craft, pay attention to the pitch and pacing of individual scenes while reading. It's the top book that Archer and Jockers identify (via computational analysis) in The Bestseller Code as having a regular rhythmic beat, apart from The Da Vinci Code and Fifty Shades of Grey, published in the fifty years preceding their study. Whether "a regular rhythmic beat" is a good thing in popular or literary fiction is another question, of course, but it's a notable feature among truly successful bestselling novels in the U.S.
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:05 AM on February 1 [1 favorite]
IIRC the book has Ryan rescuing Prince Charles, I guess they couldn't afford him for the movie, so they went with Laurence Fox's dad.
There is a ridiculous amount of acting talent in this film. Richard Harris is listed 11th on IMDB!
posted by biffa at 4:17 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]
There is a ridiculous amount of acting talent in this film. Richard Harris is listed 11th on IMDB!
posted by biffa at 4:17 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]
While I do like CaPD better since it is more Go Team America!, I consider PG to be a far better movie. It's got a great plot that is well executed. The cast is loaded. And Harrison is more 80s-action than 90s-everyman.
posted by Stuka at 5:54 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]
posted by Stuka at 5:54 PM on February 1 [1 favorite]
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The satellite raid presages the raid on Bin Laden all these years later. It's a bit uncanny.
posted by Carillon at 11:43 AM on January 31 [2 favorites]