Terrorism by Numbers (Sum Of All Fears (DVD))

Name: plipplop

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Product:	Sum Of All Fears (DVD)
Date:	07/05/07 (81 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's quite exciting in its way

Disadvantages: Ben Affleck

In such troubled times, as those in which we currently live, the plot of The Sum of All Fears will probably make a few people uncomfortable. Extreme warfare and terrorism on a grand scale seem to have become an ever-present threat these days, and this movie portrays the story of one such terrorist incident.

In the 1970s an American fighter jet is shot down over the Egyptian desert and is buried beneath the sand, along with its cargo of one nuclear missile. Decades later, the missile is discovered and sold on the black market to a cartel of world terrorists. Meanwhile, Russia has been plunged into a state of diplomatic chaos by the death of the president and his apparently unstable replacement. Relations between the USA and Russia become stretched when the two powers meet and clash over the way in which the Russian government is handling the rogue state of Chechnya. A young CIA analyst, Jack Ryan, is attached to a weapons inspection unit, headed by William Cabot (played superbly by Morgan Freeman), who is the CIA head of intelligence and the pair escorts an inspection team to Russia.

Whilst visiting a Russian missile factory, Ryan notes that three of the scientists listed as working in the unit are not present and he is advised that they are either dead, ill or on leave. Intelligence from within the Kremlin advises that this is not the case, and Cabot immediately sets Ryan the task of identifying what has happened to the three missing scientists. Each of the scientists possesses a different weapon making skill, but together they have the combined intelligence to make a bomb and it transpires that this is exactly what they have been tasked to do. Working undercover, Ryan soon realises that the scale of the plot is much larger than he originally fears. Terrorists have obtained a nuclear device – and he is horrified to discover that they plan to detonate it in a major US city. But he may have realised this too late for the occupants of Baltimore, USA……

In a post-911 climate, filmmakers now find themselves burdened with moral and technical obligations in their dealings with fiction based around terrorism. Writers and directors now need to consider the origins, motives and fate of their adversaries more carefully as the end of the Cold War has led to a world with more diverse (and dangerous) adversaries. In 2002, just one year after the Twin Towers fell; The Sum of All Fears was released to a nervous audience. Some changes were made from the source material (the original novel told a story of Islamic extremists whereas the film feature Neo-Nazis) but the outcome was largely the same – a nuclear terrorist attack on US soil.

The end result is not entirely successful. In fact, it’s a bit of a flop.

The Sum of All Fears is inconsistent, unbelievable and disappointing. It doesn’t help that it’s part of a previously successful franchise (The Hunt For Red October, Patriot Games & Clear and Present Danger) and that the lead (Ryan) has a new face.

The film is inconsistent in that it seems to think that the audience has no prior knowledge of the leading character. You may recall Jack Ryan from the films Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, when Harrison Ford capably portrayed him. However, in The Sum of All Fears, Ryan seems to have grown remarkably younger, and is now played by the youthful (and poorly cast) Ben Affleck. Whereas Ford exuded confidence, experience and integrity, Affleck is simply there to please the eye and is completely unbelievable as a figure that provides support to the American president. Jack Ryan’s wife and home also seem to have disappeared into the ether, and instead he is given a glamorous young girl friend to provide him with a romantic interest. Whilst each of the three films should rightfully stand in its own right, Clancy’s character seems to have been clumsily handled to me and Affleck is just wrong for the part.

The Sum of All Fears struck me as being highly unbelievable. Whilst my experience of presidential policy and process is limited (i.e. I have none) I simply cannot expect that these events would be handled in such a way. It won’t really spoil anything for you to let you know that the terrorists succeed in their plane to bomb Baltimore, and what follows bears more similarity to a play ground squabble than a group of important leaders. The President himself comes out with all sorts of helpful lines such as, “Don’t give me that god-damned nonsense. These people just tried to f***ing kill me!” and generally bawls at the rest of his top team like some angry teenager. We have the usual clichéd blend of war-mongerers and pacifists sat around the table, identically replicated in their Russian counterparts, and you soon find yourself thinking that you’ve wandered into a 1980s cold war James Bond movie. There is nothing measured or intelligent about the story and it felt very amateurish to me.

This film is also disappointing in that it promises much and delivers hardly anything. Whilst I can appreciate the director’s intention to refrain from turning the film into a disaster movie, the scenes depicting the moment and aftermath of the nuclear detonation are incredibly dull. I was really expecting something dramatic and striking, possibly not unlike the first strike scenes of Independence Day. Instead, we got a few simple aerial shots and then lots of distant mushroom cloud moments. To include such an explosion in a film is quite momentous and I really did expect more than this. The initial intricacies of the plot are also disappointingly played out. The way in which both sides are so easily manipulated is frankly rather frightening, and whilst I’m not naïve enough to say that there is no way that could ever happen, The Sum of All Fears suggests that orchestrating a world war is largely very simple. Some scenes are also very silly – and could have come straight out of a comic book. When will reluctant villains realise that you never get up and walk out on the bad guy?

With hindsight, The Sum of All Fears fails because it doesn’t properly capitalise on a single key element of the story. The delicacy of the espionage is quickly replaced by gung-ho military action and any subtlety is quickly lost. There is no attempt to try and portray an insight into how such a terrorist attack would be handled – or if there is then I would suggest you kiss your ass goodbye right now. All the usual silly irritations are there though. Needless to say, Ryan’s new girlfriend works in a hospital so she gets to tend all the wounded and play little miss heroine all on her own. It’s all so boring, random and unoriginal.

I can happily watch a film that requires suspension of belief, but I’d rather not watch a film that is an insult to my intelligence.

Not recommended

Summary: Affleck in Amateur Atomic Action Flick