Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 5, 1994 TAG: 9409010007
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Constructed of roughly equal parts political intrigue and old-fashioned adventure, it's a more satisfying film than previous adaptations of Tom Clancy novels, ``The Hunt for Red October'' and ``Patriot Games.'' The reasons for its success are easy to spot: director Phillip Noyce keeps the pace crisp for two hours-plus; he made excellent use of locations in Mexico and Washington, D.C.; the script by Donald Stewart, Steve Zaillian and John Milius doesn't sacrifice character to action; and the casting of Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan is inspired.
We last saw Jack battling IRA terrorists. This time the bad guys are Colombian drug dealers, not the usual stick-figure stereotypes but fully realized characters. Ernesto Escobedo (Miguel Sandoval) is a well-connected businessman with a large loving family and a passion for baseball. His right-hand man, Felix Cortez (Joaquim de Almeida), is so attractive and smart that one character describes him as ``a Latin Jack Ryan.''
But the Colombians have been involved with an assassination on the high seas. Their victim is a close personal friend of President Edward Bennett (a Reaganesque Donald Moffat). He tells National Security Advisor Cutter (Harris Yulin) to take care of the situation, but doesn't want to know how that will be accomplished. Responsibility eventually filters down to Jack who's filling in as acting deputy director of Intelligence at the CIA while his boss (James Earl Jones) is undergoing treatment for cancer.
At the same time, a covert operation is being put together by Clark (Willem Dafoe), a CIA contractor operating out of Panama, and Jack is testifying before a Senate committee, led by the wise and skeptical Sen. Mayo (Hope Lange), that nothing of the sort is going on.
Occasionally the two tangled storylines - one in Washington and the other in Central America - become a little confusing, but not for long. The tricky dirty-dealing and double-crosses are punctuated with several well-crafted action sequences. The best are an attack on a Bogota street, a ``surgical'' air strike that's anything but, and the big finish.
They don't overshadow the rest of the film, though. The plot is so intricate - with deliberate parallels drawn between today's drug wars and Vietnam - that it's just as interesting as the chases and special-effects work.
Also, given the reputation of Clancy and Milius as two of the most vocal conservatives in the entertainment business, some viewers might suspect that the film would be slanted toward the writers' beliefs. It isn't. Throughout, the story is about the conflict between principles and expediency, and that has nothing to do with party politics. (It is worth noting, though, that toward the end of the picture, Harrison Ford's appearance and dress are slightly changed so that he looks just like Clancy's dust jacket photo.)
In the end, this one does what any good popular film should - it involves viewers in a suspenseful story and makes them care about the characters, both the heroes and the villains. For comparative purposes, on a 1-to-10 scale, this summer's other big-budget thriller, ``True Lies'' weighs in with a four. ``Clear and Present Danger'' is a 9.5. Don't miss it.
Clear and Present Danger ***1/2
A Paramount release playing at the Tanglewood Mall and Valley View Mall 6. 141 min. Rated PG-13 for violence, strong language.
by CNB