Good start, but then it gets ruined

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Patriot Games3 Out Of 5Patriot Games is a plot driven action feature about a retired soldier whose family is in danger due to its own deeds. The premise guides the audience to expect a lot of guilt and emotional family drama which it does but in appropriate amount, where the rest of the act is filled with thrilling ride. The little tactics and physical humor or notion are built in with such ease that it cannot not impress the viewers. And the content can easily be relied upon from the source Clancy whose work gets juicier everytime if not better on his self-created fictional character Jack Ryan. It is short on technical aspects like background score, cinematography, sound effects but is decently edited. There isn't any out-of-the-box or metaphorical or even poetic tone in the feature that would help it give a gravitas for the character to evolve within the allotted time. But if not development, their certainly is three dimensional aspect to these characters that never changes to surprise the viewers in this plethora of explosions and bullets. But the antagonist in here is somewhat weak and isn't depicted with essential lethal-ness that remains hollow throughout the course of the feature which is quite long in here; almost two hours. Ford is confident as always and owns it with nothing but merit and is also supported nicely by Bean, Archer and Jackson. Noyce; the director, has kept its world within four walls of singular track in order to not get questioned which frankly works for the most part of its time. A smarter action and chase sequences with gripping screenplay are the only high points of this feature. Patriot Games is an easy, safe, fair and thoroughly entertaining game whose cat and mouse theme is a pro and not a con.

When CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford) interferes with an IRA assassination, a renegade faction targets him and his family for revenge.The actors who played Jack and Caroline Ryan in "The Hunt for Red October", Alec Baldwin and Gates McFadden, were unavailable. Baldwin had committed to perform in "A Streetcar Named Desire" on Broadway. In 2011, Baldwin says he did not appear because of "sleazy Hollywood tools." I just want to take this time to say that Harrison Ford is the definitive Jack Ryan. No offense to Baldwin, and no offense to Ben Affleck, who are both being excellent actors in their own right. But Ford just has the right look of an experienced agent, and someone you expect to get in combat with another spy.

Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford) has left the CIA and is in Britain speaking to their military. His wife Cathy (Anne Archer) and daughter Sally (Thora Birch) get caught up in an assassination attempt on Lord Holmes (James Fox) and his family in London. Ryan saves the day. Sean Miller (Sean Bean) is captured while his brother is killed. Kevin O'Donnell (Patrick Bergin) escapes. He leads a splinter group of Irish terrorists along with his girlfriend Annette (Polly Walker). They break out Miller and set off to take revenge on the Ryan family.This is a good but not great Jack Ryan movie. Harrison Ford does this type of role quite well. The film could have tighten the tension a bit more in the first half. The courtroom achieves little. Sean Bean screaming at Harrison Ford after the shootout would have been more intense. His escape could have been a great car chase but it's surprisingly static. Other than the cold blooded killings, there's nothing interesting there. Even Jack and Cathy's phone call before the crash could have been more intense. He has literally escaped death and yet he's so coy about the danger. I do like the section where he's looking for the terrorists in North Africa with the satellite. It's cerebral and probably the most memorable part of the movie. On the other hand, the terrorists seem to be everywhere which seems odd. First they take the slow boat to America, then escape to North America and then somehow return back to America.

It should be noted that I haven't read any of Clancy's books, so I have no idea how close Ford's portrayal of Jack Ryan is to the source material. But "Patriot Games" felt more like a Harrison Ford vehicle than a literary character adaptation. For me, at least. And there's an emphasis in this movie on Ryan as man of domesticity that tends to detract from my enjoyment (I speak mostly of that contrived saccharine ending). That said, it's certainly not without its pluses. There's some nice direction, and Phillip Noyce ups the tension during the action scenes (particularly during the third act showdown and boat chase). The scene with the CIA watching the camp raid via satellite maintains a bitter sense of humor. And as a Harrison Ford flick, it's a bit of a thrill to see him pick back up with the CIA to hunt down the bastards who wronged his family. Plus, there are a couple instances of the dread Ford Angry Finger Point of Doom (thank you for that, Internet). And then at the end, there's that syrupy baby stuff and a contrived smash-cut to credits. Still have a bad taste from that one.6/10