The Hunt for Red October

Jack Ryan was dreamed up by an insurance agent.

I read it somewhere, and forgive me, I can’t remember where, that Jack Ryan was essentially a 1980s cubicle dad. He’s an analyst — not a field agent — for the CIA. And when confronted with a problem he has to outsmart both the villains and his bureaucratic bosses.

It’s no surprise that Tom Clancy’s hero then turned into a sensation among the reading public and spawned several successful movies.

I’ve never been able to get through the books. But I bet I would love them now, in my middle age. Clancy was my mom’s favorite author. However, I watched all the Jack Ryan movies and just finished three seasons of the Amazon Jack Ryan TV show and nothing ever quite gets to the highs of Red October.

For what it’s worth the second season of the TV show included one of my favorite Jack Ryan tropes. Ryan figures out that an American politician has sold out the country and he takes him down.

In Patriot Games, the scuzzy politician he takes down is The President. On the show he gets a senator with a tape recording.

I’m not necessarily saying these other things are bad, but it is hard to live up to Red October. Harder still when the point of Red October is that Jack Ryan is very much not an action hero.

The movie sets up three strong plots and follows them through with precision, action, and wit until it gets to a splendid action movie conclusion.

First Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) goes to Washington because he is concerned about spy images of a Russian submarine that can move quietly and deliver a nuclear payload to Washington D.C. without any warning.

Second, Capt. Marko Ramius (Sean Connery) and his officers aboard the Red October are planning to defect and deliver this high-tech submarine to America for fear that Russia really will start World War 3.

And finally, the very competent officers in an American sub are tracking the Red October after a radio officer (Courtney B. Vance) figures out that the Russians must have some new secret engine that convinced his computer that he’s hearing earthquakes instead of what he knows is a 198 meter long, 50,000-ton horseman of the apocalypse.

The best part about all of this is that for most of the movie, Jack Ryan doesn’t do much of anything that you would consider Action Hero stuff.

First, he figures out that something is up with the sub. Then he figures out that Ramius wants to defect. And then in the movie’s best scene, he convinces no-nonsense Capt. Bart Mancuso (Scott Glenn) not to destroy the Red October during a confrontation when neither side can be certain of the other’s intentions.

It’s not exactly a movie full of shoot outs at the OK Corral.

Jack Ryan one of those characters that books can do really well that usually transition terribly to film and television. The guy making the decision, whether it’s a president or a CIA analyst, or a Medieval King will almost certainly not be the guy carrying out the action.

In a book, you have plenty of pages to let others carry the action. In a movie, you must keep everything moving and usually, that means just one hero facing off against a world of bad guys.

IMDB claims that Harrison Ford turned down Jack Ryan because he would have to share half the movie with Connery. Also, Indiana Jones doesn’t get talked down to by every other character actor in his next movie. To be fair to Ford, I’m not sure audiences would have enjoyed him playing this version of Jack Ryan anyway.

There is a reason the character always skews young and is usually played by men in their late 20s and early 30s. Or at least, by men who audiences will believe are in their late 20s and early 30s.

The producers got Ford to take over the franchise when Alec Baldwin asked for more money and that version of Jack Ryan is almost always in the middle of a fight.

The Die Hard movies have similar problem. In the first one, he’s a normal human being who happens to be a cop but is both terrified and brave as he tries to survive an extraordinary and deadly situation.

They try to tamp it down in the second and third movies but by the fourth go round John McLane is Superman with a badge.

And even in Clancy’s novels it became impossible not to move the CIA analyst into bigger and wilder adventures. Clancy kept upping the stakes for Ryan and increasing his status until, with nowhere else to go, Clancy made him the president. A more realistic career would probably be that Ryan returned to his cubicle after Red October, worked for 20 more years without ever leaving that cubicle, and then drifted off into a quiet retirement.

I doubt audiences would have enjoyed doddering old Jack Ryan puttering around his garden and talking to his plants about that time he hung out with a Russian submarine captain with a Scottish accent but that’s a heck of a lot closer to reality than Jack Ryan gets targeted by the IRA for reasons and then Jack Ryan takes down the Columbian drug cartels and the American president.

Screenwriters Larry Ferguson and Donald E. Stewart and Director John McTiernan do just about everything right in this flick. Including switching over early in the film so that all of the Russians are speaking English. Now, they are not actually speaking English but in the movie shorthand, McTiernan lets us know that the Russian parts will all be in English.

And when that happens Connery just speaks in his Scottish accent. The people who enjoy a good nitpick really enjoy this particular nitpick but it never bothered me on this or any other viewing. At one point, Ryan points out that Connery’s character is not actually Russian but is from Lithuania and I think my brain just accepts that Lithuanians — when speaking English — sound Scottish.

McTiernan also picks his spots with great action beats followed by unrelenting tension in the submarine command decks as the crazy Russian captain tries to escape his countrymen who want to kill him and figure out how to connect with the Americans without getting shot by some buckaroo.

This movie is a great example of how there are no bit parts. Every character actor gets to make a meal of the one of two scenes they receive.

So you get Fred Thompson as an admiral who gets to convey to the audience how Russians evacuate their bowels and how dangerous this situation is getting and a little bit of Ryan’s backstory.

Russians don’t take a dump, son, without a plan.

Adm. Painter (Fred Thompson)

James Earl Jones is having too much fun as Ryan’s CIA boss.

I told you to speak your mind Jack, but Jesus …

Admiral James Greer

Richard Jordan is just wonderful as a man who knows his place in the world.

Listen, I’m a politician, which means I’m a cheat and a liar, and when I’m not kissing babies, I’m stealing their lollipops. But it also means I keep my options open.

Jeffrey Pelt

This movie also gets a bunch of joy from Tim Curry playing the clueless Dr. Petrov who never, ever figures out that Ramius is taking him for a ride.

 You will receive the Order of Lenin for this, Captain!

Dr. Petrov

Along with being the height of Alec Baldwin as a leading man Hunt for Red October capped off a tremendous run for Director John McTiernan. In 1987 he directed Predator, he followed that with Die Hard in 1988 and then The Hunt for Red October in 1990.

Things went south quickly after that as McTiernan directed Connery in Medicine Man and Arnold Schwarzenegger in Last Action Hero. He then made another classic in 1995 with Die Hard with a Vengeance.

And then, and then, … well IMDB states that he was the director of the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, the 13th Warrior, and Rollerball. When things go south in Hollywood it happens fast.

But man, what a run. Three stone classics and the only good sequel to Die Hard. I would have liked to see what McTiernan and Baldwin could have cooked up for the Jack Ryan sequels.

Ah well, it wasn’t to be. It will have to live on in my dreams along with the other life I want to live, somewhere in Montana.