Clear and Present Danger (1994)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Written by Donald Stewart, John Milius, and Steven Zaillian; based on the novel by Tom Clancy
Directed by Phillip Noyce
Starring Harrison Ford, Willem Dafoe, Anne Archer, James Earl Jones & Raymond Cruz

Features:

• Behind the Danger: cast & crew interview featurette
  
• Theatrical trailer
  

Released by: Paramount
Region: 1
Rating: PG-13
Anamorphic: Yes

My Advice: Rent it

Having returned to his job at the CIA, Jack Ryan (Ford) has settled back in nicely, and all seems to be going well. Except that Ryan’s boss, Admiral Greer (Jones) has run into a more wily foe than all his years in the world of spies and black ops has prepared him for: cancer. While Greer is on an extended medical leave, Ryan becomes acting Deputy Director of Intelligence, much to the chagrin of the current administration and, most particularly, the Deputy Director of Operations, who views Ryan’s upstanding and unshakeable ethics as obstacles to be overcome.

As acting DDI, Ryan is assigned to solve the murder of one of the President’s friends. What Ryan knows is that what was once viewed as a simple act of brutal piracy is perhaps a great deal more complicated, and that Colombian drug money might be involved. What Ryan doesn’t know is that the President (Donald Mofatt) and his National Security Advisor (Harris Yulin) have hatched a secret plan to exact revenge on the Colombian cartels for the death of the President’s friend and former business associate. The NSA, cooperating in secret with the DDO, has dispatched a small team of plausibly deniable commandos to Latin America to start raising a little hell and putting a chokehold on the Colombian cartels.

This team, led by the mysterious and deadly John Clark (Dafoe), is blazing across the Colombian countryside, blasting drug labs and destroying cartel property. With quiet support from the U.S. military, the crack team of commandos seems unstoppable. But when the cartel gets backed into a corner, it retaliates. After a goodwill trip to Colombia goes disastrously wrong, killing a handful of American officials and nearly Ryan himself, Jack decides to get to the bottom of what the hell is going on in Colombia, though it may well cost him his career. With the situation suddenly a political hot potato, the President orders the whole commando team discreetly forgotten about. This gives Ryan yet another problem to solve, while the DDO and NSA have set him up as a target for assassination by the now furious Clark.

Racing against the clock to expose the truth before every shred of evidence is destroyed, Ryan must build a case against his political opponents, while trying to rescue a troop of abandoned paramilitary soldiers in the depths of the Colombian jungle and dodging cartel soldiers. As usual, the “pencil-pushing” Ryan is forced to play the spec ops soldier while trying to juggle all the various political angles without getting himself or anybody else killed.

Clear and Present Danger is another solid entry in the Ryan canon from helmer Noyce. It’s a shame that more of the Ryan novels weren’t adapted at the time, utilizing the always impressive Ford in the role. This one does, however, give us Dafoe as one of Clancy’s best characters ever: John Clark. The quiet and deadly Clark is a mainstay of the books, and a fan favorite. Dafoe proves an excellent casting choice, full of understated menace and implied violence, but outwardly calm, collected, and professional.

Again, there’s a dearth of good features. I’d love to hear a commentary from Clancy himself on these adaptations, if for nothing else than his technical expertise--although some of his more colorful bits would be quite entertaining. The interviews with cast and crew are decent, but nothing to write home about. Clancy completists will definitely want to put this one the shelf, but for all others, a rental will likely do just fine.