 Movie
Reviews
with Evelyn Gough
The Sum of all Fears (M)
Directed by Phil Alden Robinson
 Morgan Freeman and Ben Affleck
Terrorists exploding a nuclear bomb in the United States? Well, once upon a time the idea was inconceivable, or at least just another action-packed plot for a Tom Clancy thriller. But as we were reminded this week, it's now all too painfully and frighteningly possible.
Based on Clancy's series of novel featuring CIA agent Jack Ryan, The Sum of all Fears sees Ben Affleck taking over from aging star Harrison Ford as Ryan. And it's a far younger, much less experienced Ryan who finds himself a key player in the race to prevent all out nuclear war.
With the death of the Russian Prime Minister, a new regime led by the relatively unknown Nemerov (Ciaran Hinds) is elected. Ryan, who is considered an expert on the new President, is asked to travel with a delegation to Russia to meet the new leader and inspect their nuclear weapons arsenal.
He's no dummy, our Jack, and he's quick to notice that three of the top Russian nuclear scientists are missing! (Cue foreboding music...)
This is scary stuff. Somewhere out there is a nutter with a really big bomb and only one person (guess who!) has the slightest idea of what's going on.
Of course, when events spiral out of control and both Nemerov and the United States President (James Cromwell aka Babe's Farmer Hoggett) are only seconds away from pushing their big red buttons and it's goodbye to the world as we know it, will anybody listen to Jack Ryan? No!
Screenwriters Paul Attanasio and Daniel Pyne have done a good job of converting Tom Clancy's nail-biter to the big screen. Throw in some cool special effects and a great cast which includes Morgan Freeman, the under-rated Liev Schreiber, Alan Bates and Bridget Moynahan as the very squeezable Dr Cathy Muller and you have an intelligent, edge-of-your-seat, perhaps too-prophetic thriller.
These movies used to be fun, but now it should come with a warning for anyone suffering an S11 post traumatic stress disorder.
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