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The Sum of All Fears
***1/2
Cinema Releases - August 16, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 12. USA.
124 minutes. Directed by Phil Alden Robinson. Written by Paul Attanasio,
Daniel Pyne; from the novel by Tom Clancy. Starring Ben Affleck, Morgan Freeman,
James Cromwell, Live Schreiber, Bridget Moynahan, Alan Bates, Ciaran Hinds,
Philip Baker Hall, Ron Rifkin, Bruce McGill, Colm Feore, Josef
Sommer.
Walking through the city centre of Liverpool after
the press show of "The Sum of All Fears", I found myself glancing
across spaces and at landmarks, and thinking, well, what if a surprise nuclear
attack really was sprung upon a major modern city? The thought had nowhere
to go and the vague visualisation in my mind led me to no profound realisations.
Some things are too enormously horrific to be constructively dwelt upon by
guys like me. They just hover in my mind like facts too crazy to talk about,
and sometimes hit me in nightmarish moments of apocalyptic premonition, making
me shiver some.
"The Sum of All Fears" gets under our skin simply
by crossing the nuclear line. A nuke is more than just a bomb, and each one
means more than the lives it has the potential to end. There is something
overwhelmingly biblical about the mushroom cloud, the implications of nuclear
strategy, and to me, the very fundamentals of atomic science. The sum of
all fears indeed.
Following in the footsteps of Alec Baldwin and
Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck stars as CIA agent Jack Ryan, in the best of the
Ryan movies since "The Hunt for Red October" (1990). The film is based on
one of Tom Clancy's earlier Ryan novels, and so we get a younger version
of the hero, low in agency ranks and eager to get his voice heard. Ryan is
an expert on an enigmatic Russian political figure who has unexpectedly ascended
to his country's presidency. American officials are suspicious of the new
president's possible hard-line attitudes toward Chechnya and the world in
general; Ryan attempts to assuage doubts, but circumstances are making his
task difficult.
Meanwhile a neo-Nazi group is buying a small nuclear
device on the black market: an American bomb that was supplied to (and lost
by) Israel in the 1970s. The plan is to detonate in Baltimore when communication
is murkiest between the United States and Russia, plunging them into suspicion
and war, and letting them destroy themselves.
Affleck is strong, direct and sincere in the role
of Ryan, as he collects information and tries to make sure his vital points
are relayed successfully over a sea of obstacles and voices. The filmmakers
include Phil Alden Robinson, who made "Field of Dreams" (1989), and Paul
Attanasio, the former film critic who turned screenwriter with "Quiz Show"
(1994). These are not the kind of men usually involved in big-budget spy
stories, and they unfold things properly, absorb us with texture and personality,
and don't make the mistakes of concentrating too much on the problems of
the hero or making their work feel like assembly-line action. After the
astonishing sequence in which the bomb goes off, Robinson does a tremendous
job of showing the tangible agony of the moment. Rubble, smoke, flashblinding
and pure shock impede emergency response, and men are seen to be at the mercy
of technology, as cellphones and messengers can't be made to work in the
moments when they absolutely need to.
James Cromwell plays the American president; the
actors playing his advisors and security staff include Morgan Freeman, Ron
Rifkin and Philip Baker Hall. Their scenes in the aftermath of the bomb are
put together brilliantly, as the camera tumbles around in chaos and sees
men shouting at each other in anger, frustration and confusion. They're smart
guys, asking all the right questions, and they're still tense as
hell.
Criticism has been levelled at "The Sum of All
Fears" for its allegedly silly Nazi villains, who make diabolical plans while
smarming around in sleek European suits, and are seen in dark, looming shots
as disturbing music hums on the soundtrack. The film ignores the Arabic terrorist
threats of the past two decades' political climate, it has been said, in
a strained attempt to be inoffensive to ethnic minorities. I dunno. Colour
coding is not a good thing, but in fairness to the movie, it pays more attention
to the rise of the far right than its country's news reports, at the same
time as taking on America's reckless policy toward Israel and the fact that
Western citizens need to stop pretending we live in a peaceful world. And
even if you don't buy all that, admit that the film is superior genre
storytelling. With nukes.
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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