Patriot Games [Blu-ray]

Second film adaptation of the Tom Clancy character CIA analyst Jack Ryan, now played by Harrison Ford and set 8 years after the previous film, with him living in England and assisting in preventing a terrorist attack on the Royal family, killing one of the assailants, whose brother vows vengeance against Ryan and his wife (played by Anne Archer) and daughter (played by Thora Birch) The plot becomes more complicated as there appears to be a traitor somewhere in the royal government. James Earl Jones returns, though now directed by Philip Noyce.Looking just fine in HD, (I am at present unable to view the UHD disc) porting over the extras from the DVD, though nothing new was added. Good action thriller is a bit far-fetched at times but entertaining regardless.

Phillip Noyce’s Patriot Games 1992 film, “Patriot Games,” adapts the 1987 novel of the same name by Tom Clancy. Though a sequel to the 1990 film, “The Hunt for Red October,” the original book was a prequel. The film recast the roles of Jack and Catherine Ryan, with Harrison Ford and Anne Archer replacing Alec Baldwin and Gates McFadden, respectively. James Earl Jones returns as Admiral James Greer, though. The story begins with Jack Ryan witnessing and intervening an attempted kidnapping of Lord William Holmes (James Fox), the British Minister of State for Northern Ireland. In the course of the kidnapping attempt, Ryan is shot and he kills one of the would-be kidnappers. The police subdue Sean Miller (Sean Bean), the brother of the man Ryan killed. After a trial, Ryan returns to the U.S. where he teaches at the Naval Academy. Miller wants revenge and escapes English custody, taking his rogue IRA group with him in an attempt on both Ryan and his family’s lives. They fail again, but Ryan’s daughter is severely injured. Ryan returns to the CIA to search for Miller’s group, who have relocated to a training camp in Northern Africa. Ryan analyzes the data in order to find their location, but Miller’s core leadership have traveled back to the U.S. where Ryan plans to host Lord Miller for dinner during his U.S. trip, leading to a tense confrontation on the Maryland coast. The story is a solid continuation of the Jack Ryan franchise, balancing several moving plot threads and using excellent actors to bring to life the characters unique to this story. Noyce succeeded well enough that he returned to the franchise 2 years later with 1994’s “Clear and Present Danger,” a second outing with Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan.

My wife and I have a pretty good Amazon streaming collection and were happy to add this Patriot Games (4K UHD), when it was on a good deal. Patriot Games is part of the Jack Ryan series, staring of course, a few different actors, but the iconic favorite seems to be Harrison Ford (we choose to see them as different films/stories rather than a continuous series of the same character). Ford “only” did Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger - a two-movie franchise unto itself. Frankly, I prefer Clear and Present Danger slightly overly Patriot Games, my wife just the opposite. But we like both movies and the Ford-Ryan connection. This is a well-cast, well written entry dealing with England vs. Irish IRA radicals and family protection, with Jack taking on the extremists to first, save a member of the royal family, then his own when the IRA retaliates. Taking place on “both sides of the pond,” Ryan is helped by the usual crowd; his wife, Admiral Greer, and a couple others - from the navy and marines. In the end, Ryan saves the day (of course) and lives to fight another day. But as with Clear and Present (and the Alex Baldwin entry, The Hunt for Red October), the story is well told and executed. These are Ford among his best. He walks a great tightrope between academic nerd and tough take - no- prisoners father and husband. There is enough story to balance the action, and enough Ford to keep us going. In the end, it’s a great action film, date night - or for me - background movie to have playing while I work.

This is a very good action thriller from the Tom Clancy "Jack Ryan" novels, it's the first installation that was adapted for the silver screen and in my opinion, along with Clear and Present Danger is the best of them, the one thing that I find off is that there is no mention or hint of Jack Ryan's prior service as a 2nd LT in the USMC in either Patriot games or Clear and Present danger, all the other Jack Ryan films makes it obvious that he served, in a way leaving this out is both a help and a hindrance, it helps by maintaining his "Family Man" demeanor and allows viewers to view him as more of an average everyday person, on the other hand it makes him seem like someone who is on the outside looking in when it comes to the military aspect of the films.I know it may seem like I'm obsessing about this aspect but to me if I were him and this was real life, I'd want to be known as someone who served his country, to avoid the "outsider treatment" that he gets in both films, the films also paint Jack Ryan as a glorified dork/geek who has an air of over sophistication that at times clashes with what he does in the field (the few times he is actually in the field).All in All it's a very good movie, and Harrison Ford does a great job of portraying Ryan! In an interesting Side Note some of the later Jack Ryan Novels, especially "Executive Order" Jack Ryan is President of The United States, interestingly enough Harrison Fords character in Air Force one was President and had also served in the USMC, though Air Force One was not a Tom Clancy Novel/Screenplay it is interesting to note that the film and Ford's character contains some pretty close parallels to Jack Ryan and both Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger.