Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Though I remember liking this when it opened in August of 1994 and more than Patriot Games but far under The Hunt for Red October and one climactic line ("How DARE YOU, SIR!"), I could not for the life of me recall anything else. That's probably not a good sign for a movie I thought I liked.The first half of this movie plays like a TV movie with a plot a seven year old could follow and the film really doesn't pick up until act 2. Luckily, by then we're invested and totally rooting for John/Jack Ryan. 21 years later and only my 2nd viewing in as many years, I believe it somewhat holds up. Not to mention and comparatively speaking, it blows the other Jack Ryan installments out of the water, with the exception of The Hunt for Red October. Patriot Games, The Sum of all Fears and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit all wither to this film. Oh, and please, guys, five Ryan films, two good and the last one 21 years ago. No more trying. Just move on.

It's no wonder why Tom Clancy was angered with the making of his books into movies after Patriot Games. Many characters from the book were changed from the start of the movie. The movie was confusing for most audience members because it left out many chapters and sub plots from the book. In the book Jack Ryan does not find out the connection to the drug cartel until after the covert operation began because he never had a briefing with the President because the President had already made a statement of Clear and Present Danger. Ryan never meets Clark until after Escobedo's was bombed from an aerial strike. The movie also left out Samuel Jackson's character(Robby) out of the movie when he was a major part in the book discovering about the Covert Operation in Columbia. Harrison Ford Anne Archer and James Earl Jones reprized their roles with finesse. If you are an avid reader of Tom Clancy this movie will disappoint you.

Clear And Present Danger is a spy action thriller that is based on the novel of Tom Clancy of the same title.It features Harrison Ford in the title role as Jack Ryan with James Earl Jones,who portrays as Vice-Admiral James Greer together with supporting cast that includes Willem Dafoe,Miguel Sandoval,Belita Moreno and Joaquim de Almeida.it was directed by Philip Noyce,who also was at helm in other Jack Ryan films such as The Hunt For Red October and Patriot Games.The film's setting happens when Jack Ryan has been appointed as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) acting Deputy Director.He later discovers that he is being kept in the dark by some of his CIA colleagues in the agency about a covert war operation against the drug lords at Colombia.Later,it was also revealed that the President's wealthy friend is well-connected to the said Colombian drug cartel.When the national security adviser and the CIA deputy director were captured in Colombia,the President's men decided to abandon their force.In the end,it was up to Jack Ryan and another operative to rescue them on their won risking his career and life. This is the second time that Harrison Ford will portray Jack Ryan after Patriot Games and he brings earnestness and freshness to the role.Aside from that,it the story provides complex political intrigue,interesting plot and lots of tension that it is fun to sit through as it is exciting and entertaining from beginning to end.Despite some confusion that it may provide in the political ideologies and beliefs that the characters in it adhere to including the President,what stands out here though is the moral dilemma that Jack Ryan as it brings his humanistic side of saving lives in danger which could probably considered the overall theme of this action thriller.

While less believable than the book by having Jack involved in almost every plot point - in Tom Clancy's novel he only properly comes into the main story in the last third - it's a more satisfying experience all round than Patriot Games.Some patience is required as much of the first half is spent introducing new characters, setting up plot, etc. The investigation of a hit on a businessman and his family on a luxury yacht by a pair of hired muscle reveals connections with a Colombian drug cartel - the businessman was skimming money from them, and he and his family paid for it with their lives. The money skimmed is located, and the US government seizes it which angers the drug baron who was being scammed, Ernesto Escobedo. Escobedo's intel man, former Cuban DGI colonel Felix Cortez, sees an opportunity to seize power by having the US Ambassador, and the visiting FBI Director assassinated. Meanwhile, the CIA, without Ryan's knowledge, is running an illegal covert operation against the drug cartels, with covert troops deep in Colombia staging hit and run raids on drug factories, and secret airports used for aircraft smuggling drugs. The assassinations provoke the President into ordering things to be taken to a new lever. An aerial strike is ordered against a drug baron's mansion while he is meeting with several others, and attempts are made to pass it off as a car bombing by angry cartel members. But not only is Jack growing suspicious that his own country is doing something illegal, Cortez also is becoming alert to the fact the US government is running a secret operation in a supposedly friendly nation.When Cortez blackmails a senior US official into giving him the locations of the US troops in Colombia, Jack, with the help of a shadowy field agent called John Clark - Willem Dafoe - takes matters into his own hands.Convoluted to be sure, but a thoroughly intriguing political thriller, with great action sequences, particularly the RPG attack on the convoy in Bogota. The climactic rescue sequence is rather weak compared to the more epic version in the book, more akin to a 12-rated Rambo movie, but it works well in itself. The showdown with the President provides plenty of sparks - I AM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES - though the ending departs considerably from the book.