There is a certain inanity to 'The Sum of All Fears' and it begins to grate after a while. It is Jack Ryan (portrayed here by Ben Affleck) constantly being seen by his government superiors as 'the boy who cried wolf.' Yes, this is a continuing aspect of the character, but it is WAY overdone here, to the point of absurdity. Ryan is belittled, ignored, disbelieved, lectured, and generally made to look like a fool. At one point, he actually has a member of the cabinet on the phone during a crisis in which Ryan has a crucial piece of the puzzle, and the guy hangs up on him! Please tell me our government isn't THAT stupid. The story basically is that a mischievous third party tries to provoke a war between Russia and the United States, and damn near succeeds when they acquire an old Israeli nuke that disappeared back in the 70's. They set it off in Baltimore and the US administration naturally suspects the Russians. The problem is, the film audience learns about the weapon very early on, and so Jack Ryan's uncovering of the truth, in bits and pieces, seems interminable. Between no one else in the government believing him and the agonizing amount of time it takes him to put two and two together, filmgoers may begin tearing their hair out. Ben Affleck resembles Alec Baldwin's Jack Ryan much more than Harrison Ford's. Despite the urgency of much of his dialogue, Affleck comes off a bit shallow, and at times seems more annoyed at things in general than worried about the possibility of a nuclear showdown. Like the whole thing is keeping him from ordering concert tickets or something. Morgan Freeman plays his boss at the CIA and he's good as always, and James Cromwell is quite believable as the US President. 'The Sum of All Fears' doesn't feel a part of the same world really as the other Tom Clancy films, even with the presence of old hands like Cromwell. The Ryan character is diminished too much, and there is no other presence in the film substantial enough to take his place. So we essentially have an ensemble piece about a horrific set of events with a lot of interesting things taking place and a number of characters dealing with them. Taken on those terms, 'The Sum of All Fears' is a decent thriller.
Review of The Sum of All Fears
