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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Slasher films a poor substitute, July 19, 2004
For sheer excitement on the edge of your not-so-easy chair, there's nothing like a good Jack Ryan story, and I think this is the best of them. The plot involves one of the most obsessed bad guys you'll ever see, a fanatically militant member of an IRA splinter group whose attack on the British royal family is thwarted almost unconsciously by Ryan, who is visiting England as a tourist/lecturer. Now ex-CIA, Ryan's family is nearby, and family is central in this tale of the cold-blooded world of international espionage and terrorism. The family angle is one that keeps the story so chilling throughout, as the terrorist's brother is shot to death by Ryan as he ruins their try on the royals, and our star villain then sets out to stalk Ryan and his wife and daughter.The film moves at an almost perfect pace, and unveils to us some modern aspects of this shadowy world. For instance, even Ryan, played with understated perfection by Harrison Ford, is creeped out by his participation in a nighttime strike on a desert camp believed to be IRA training ground. In this scene he and several other jacket-and-tie types watch soldiers take out this nest of vipers a half-world away, thanks to infrared and satellite technology, all while detached voices calmly note "Target neutralized" and spies dressed like businessmen smile and nod while whispering to one another in thorough detachment from the blood and guts of the operation. All this technology and we are not removed from the days of the rich people perching on hills near the battles of Civil War days, sipping tea while viewing the entertainment. I cannot give less than five stars to a film that draws me in so completely as this one, making me feel the tension with such clarity and indeed making it so easy to actually hate the villain. Yet the film strikes sour notes with the drunken Richard Harris's half-hearted performance as an IRA bigwig, and with the cliched ending moment of an otherwise superb boat chase at the film's climax. Two distracting moments would mean a score of 9 on a scale of 1 to 10, or, in Amazon terms, 4-1/2 stars. These being minor, a full five stars is quite reasonable. Nearly a perfect action film; even the understated music score is just so right that it can't be imagined being done any other way.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Adaptation of Clancy Bestseller, April 12, 2007
This review is from: Patriot Games (Special Collector's Edition) (DVD)
Patriot Games was the second in a series of adaptations of Tom Clancy's bestselling novels featuring heroic CIA analyst Jack Ryan. However, Alec Baldwin, who played Ryan in "The Hunt For Red October," ended up not appearing in this film. But no worries. Ryan is played by stalwart leading man Harrison Ford, who plays Ryan to a tee, as a brave, cerebral man of action.
Ryan is on vacation in England when he interferes with an IRA assassination attempt on a member of the British royal family. He kills one of the terrorists, and his brother, played by Sean Bean, vows revenge. Now, Ryan and his family are threatened by a rogue group of Provos, having to rely on their own wits, and the protection of fellow intelligence officer Samuel L. Jackson, to survive.
This is a crackling good thriller with a great script and taut direction by Phillip Noyce. Ford would go on to play Ryan again in "Clear and Present Danger." This is an excellent adaptation of a popular novel, which doesn't happen very often.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Evil Personified, December 19, 2004
Each time I have watched "Patriot Games" I have been struck by the level of evil in the "bad guys". The bad guys here are a splinter group of Irish terrorist who will stop at nothing to ...well, I'm not positive just what they're after. Presumably it is getting the English out of Northern Ireland and I guess there may have been some talk about this goal. However, these guys are so bad it would seem they would keep killing even if their stated goals were achieved. This is especially true of the main culprit and it is he and his brother who falls victim when Harrison Ford rescues a member of the royal family from an attempted abduction. The bad guy, played, I believe, by Sean Bean, is caught and sentenced to prison. That would be the end of the movie except he escapes from prison and vows revenge on Ford. How he tries to achieve that revenge is the crux of the movie.
Along the way we get some insight to the CIA's efforts to combat terrorism as well as some less evil IRA types who DO view their mission as political and not personal. However, the movie succeeds with a very well done showdown between the good guys and the bad guys. That is a particularly well done suspenseful series of events that may have you jumping out of your seat a time or two. It is a credit to Tom Clancy's book as well as to the director and script writer that this action is so powerfully done.
I admit to some misgivings about the flow of the story. In subsequent viewings I tried to figure out the different collaborations needed to have everything come together but I could not make sense of it. In other words, who let them in and why? Maybe you'll wonder the same thing when you watch "Patriot Games". However, I shouldn't get too caught up on the finer points (except Clancy is generally good at covering them). This is a good movie that I actually enjoyed more the second time I watched it.
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