Clear and Present Danger

Based on the book by Tom Clancy, Clear and Present Danger follows Harrison Ford’s Jack Ryan as he finds himself drawn into a deadly skirmish between the United States and a Colombian drug cartel. Filmmaker Phillip Noyce, working from a screenplay by Donald E. Stewart, Steven Zaillian, and John Milius, delivers a methodically-paced yet mostly gripping political thriller that benefits from Ford’s completely (and consistently) captivating performance, as the actor offers up a predictably solid turn that goes a long way towards anchoring the proceedings from start to finish – with the actor’s first-class turn matched by a periphery cast overflowing with talented, ingratiating character actors (including Harris Yulin, Willem Dafoe, James Earl Jones, and Henry Czerny). (The latter’s agreeably smarmy work as the ambitious CIA Deputy Director of Operations remains an obvious highlight within the proceedings, while the eventual confrontation between his and Ford’s respective figures is as electrifying and enthralling as one might’ve hoped.) And although the picture admittedly does run out of steam slightly in its padded-out third act, with the final action sequence suffering from a somewhat shoehorned-in quality, Clear and Present Danger is, for the most part, a top-notch adaptation that boasts more than its fair share of memorable interludes and set-pieces (eg a spellbinding mid-movie attack on several armored SUVs, a heated confrontation between Jack and the President, etc).

***1/2 out of ****