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The Sum of All Fears [Blu-ray] [2002] [US Import]


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Not a bad thriller.
Review date: 2008-07-13 Rating: 8 out of 10

Action thriller set in 2002 in which a neo-Nazi terrorist group gets hold of a small Israeli nuclear bomb that went missing during the Arab-Israeli war of 1973 and uses it to try and trick America and Russia into nuclear war with each other, and the efforts of a CIA analyst played by Ben Affleck to prevent this nightmare scenario from happening. Not a bad thriller, with one particularly horrifying moment on which the whole film hinges, but it must be said I have seen films with `preventing World War Three' plots that had greater urgency (e.g. Crimson Tide starring Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman). Still, worth a look.

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Reviews


Just sit back and enjoy the entertainment
Review date: 2007-12-11 Rating: 10 out of 10

Oh dear. Why do so many people have to analyse films so deeply. I always thought they were supposed to entertain, not invite intellectual analysis. The Sum of All Fears is excellent entertainment. What does it matter if bits are unbelievable? Surely, a fictional story is a vehicle for the imagination. As for anti-Semitism. P-lease.... Everyone I know who has seen this film has been delighted with it. It has great tension and often leaves you breathless. The actual nuclear incident breaks into the film with a shocking surprise, even though there is a considerable build up to it. It comes out of nowhere, just as it would in real life. Incidentally, the respective presidents are well portrayed. The 'halo' of advisers, good and bad, certainly exists in real life. I doubt that many decisions are actually unique to these individuals. Highly recommended entertainment to be enjoyed with a beer and a good selection of snacks.

Propaganda, nothing but propaganda
Review date: 2007-12-05 Rating: 6 out of 10

This film could have been a good one. It came out after 9/11 but before Iraq, at the time of Afghanistan. It is about the "final" confrontation between the USA and Russia. A nuclear terrorist attack is organized in Baltimore so that the USA may believe it comes from the Russians and may start the procedure leading to a full out nuclear war. From the very start the theory that is illustrated here is that terror in the world is organized by the Israeli secret services with the help of some western autonomous adventurers and with the complicity of the hard liners in the Russian and Ukrainian armies. Then the whole story is difficult to believe because of the total lack of real believable hard facts. The American president appears as quite manipulated by his own military personnel and his State and Defense Secretaries, without speaking of the CIA. The Russian president appears just as much manipulated but with maybe a little bit more nerve. The whole plot fails because a small CIA intellectual agent manages to speak to the Russian president directly via the red telephone and make him take the decision to halt his alert, a decision that the US president immediately imitates. How can we believe that. The Weapons of Mass Destruction are quoted in some remote small sentence somewhere unimportant but the propaganda is clear. The various actors of this plot are then eliminated one after the other in the most radical way possible. That's a shame in a way because the film is rather well made and acted but it is obvious war propaganda that supports the theory pretending the world is being manipulated if not controlled by the Israelis, a resurgence of sorts of the old hitlerian anti-semitism of old. I guess some believe that good old hate-theories can always be revived in a way or another, with a little bit of upgrading if necessary.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines


I LIKED THIS
Review date: 2007-08-16 Rating: 8 out of 10

After reading several negative reviews, I was shocked when I finally saw `The sum of all fears'. I simply LOVED this movie . It was totally thrilling. It had all the ingredients of a great adventure and to top it off it was visually poetic and emotionally stirring.

I never read the book this is based on, and I'm not a Tom Clancy fan. I came into this movie expecting to hate it, because I have hated all the other films in the Jack Ryan series. They were too dry and technical, lacking immediacy or emotion and they felt more like lectures on the way government works and how the military operates than movies. Those films were made for Tom Clancy fans. The sum of all fears was made for a different audience, which is unfortunate since it is based on one of his novels. There is no doubt that it crosses the line into fantasy several times for dramatic effect. Things happen that probably wouldn't happen in real life. People do things that are impossibly heroic and unrealistic. I'm convinced this is why Clancy fans hate this adaptation. For me, these traits (considered flaws by many people) helped free the movie from the constraints of absolute realism, allowing it to become more poetic and powerful than it ever could be otherwise.

Director Phil Alden Robinson deserves most of the praise for this film. He's a new name for me, but looking at his filmography, it was interesting to see that he was the writer and director for field of dreams, another film that I totally loved. He was a very odd choice to helm this film, because field of dreams is a bizarre movie where reality and fantasy meet head on. It's an ultra surreal American fairy tale. It's like a happy David Lynch film, or a Luis Buñuel film with a wholesome center. This is not the kind of director you would normally choose to make a movie like the sum of all fears. The clash between the ultra realism of Clancy's material and Robinson's willingness to forgo realism in favor of dreamy fairy tale lyricism creates a wonderful sense of vibrancy that I would never have anticipated.

After seeing the sum of all fears, I am now convinced that Robinson will go on to make a huge name for himself. He is a truly gifted director with an incredible ability to communicate through images. I can't wait to see his next film. If field of dreams is any indication, he is just good a writer as he is as a director, and I am excited to see what other sorts of ideas he might produce.

The movie also has tremendous performances by Morgan Freeman, and (surprisingly) Ben Affleck. He's way to young to play Jack Ryan, so he doesn't even try. The Jack Ryan in this movie is a reinvented character. He's basically a young guy, with the mentality of an idealist, working his way up in the CIA, while trying to juggle a bachelors social life. For me, he works in this film and he plays that kind of character perfectly.

The bottom line is this: If you love Tom Clancy and you've read every one of his books, you're probably going to hate this movie. If you have never read the book, and have no real interest in Clancy's work, you'll probably at least enjoy it. If your like me, and you don't mind films that let drama interfere with rationality, you'll probably love it.

A good film if you can get past the stereotypical view of the Russians in such films
Review date: 2006-12-11 Rating: 8 out of 10

Just watched this film again and it's got many of the things you want in a thriller. It's got tension, action and the story is interesting enough to keep you on the edge of your seat.

Morgan Freeman is excellent (as always) and Ben Affleck makes a good and credible Jack Ryan, geeky enough to not be an action hero yet capable of saving the day when needed.

I've not read the book so cannot say whether my only critism is within the film or the book but...

The biggest problem I have with this film is in the way the Russians are portrayed - yet again the USA will save the day and are shown to be totally professional and never do anything wrong whereas the Russians are shown to be slightly amateurish and riddled with dithering old war mongers. I found this a let down in what was, otherwise, an interesting story.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Alan Bates
Michael Byrne
John Beasley
Ben Affleck
James Cromwell

Creators:
Ben Affleck (Primary Contributor)
Alan Bates (Primary Contributor)
John Lindley (Cinematographer)
Jerry Goldsmith (Composer)

Recording label: Paramount
Manufacturer: Paramount
EAN: 0097361376486
Binding: Blu-ray
Number of items: 1
Format: AC-3, Colour, Dolby, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen,
Release date: 2008-07-29
Universal product code (UPC): 097361376486
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Running time: 123 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2002
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: English (Subtitled)
Language: French (Subtitled)
Language: Portuguese (Subtitled)
Language: Spanish (Subtitled)
Language: French (Dubbed)
Language: Spanish (Dubbed)

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