The Hunt For Red October

This is a fascinating action film adapted from a fascinating book by Tom Clancy. Even though it takes place back during the Cold War between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R., the film is gripping and will hold anybody's interest right from the opening scene to the final scene. Bonus: it's a pure action film and can be watched by the whole family.The plot has been modified from the novel by Tom Clancy and slightly simplified to work better on the screen. Briefly, a Russian submarine commander, Marko Ramius (Sean Connery), plans to defect to the United States; the Russian government tries to stop him by trying to sink him and they convince the American government that Ramius is a rogue commander who wants to nuke America. Jack Ryan, a C.I.A. analyst (Alec Baldwin), is convinced that Ramius is actually trying to defect and winds up going to extreme lengths to assist Ramius.The cast was superbly chosen. Sean Connery is the Lithuanian-born sub commander (a perfect performance - and he has an interesting accent in the film); Alec Baldwin is Jack Ryan (interesting to see him when he was young and thin); James Earl Jones as James Greer the C.I.A. head (great character part); Sam Neill as Borodin the 2nd in command of the Red October (another great character part); Scott Glenn as Bart Mancuso, an American sub commander (and his portrayal makes you hope ALL American sub commanders are like him); Richard Jordan as the National Security Adviser (makes you almost like politicians); Tim Curry as the Russian medical officer (wonderful character part- who knew Tim Curry was really this good?); Courtney Vance as "Jonesy", the American sonar operator (a pitch-perfect performance); Fred Thompson (yes, THAT Fred Thompson before Law & Order) in a really good part as an American Admiral. You can't beat this cast and their performances.The scenes that take place inside the subs are good, but the technology you see are strictly Hollywood - the computer systems and controls are a bit cartoonish - but that's okay - this film is pure entertainment. For years I had the VHS tape and snapped up this Blu-ray version and I am impressed with it's magnificent quality.This DVD is well worth it and one of the most enjoyable action films you can watch.

The movie is based on the book by Tom Clancy and if you haven't read it you should! The movie was released in March of 1990, had a budget of 30 million and was directed by John McTeirnan. The story starts with Jack Ryan (played by Alec Baldwin) our main character who works for the CIA but is living in England and working with British Intelligence. Jack has some information he got from the British about a new Russian sub that he takes back to America to share with James Earl Jones' character Admiral Greer at CIA headquarters. This new Russian sub has a silent propulsion system that would make it almost undetectible to US forces which is kind of a bad thing when it happens to be a nuclear missile sub (the Red October) capable of wipeing out the entire eastern seaboard. As Jack is enlisting the aide of a naval engineer to study the info he has it is learned that the Red October has put to sea. Tensions rise to maximum in the military chiefs of staff meeting at the White House as they fear that the Russians could easily make a surprise nuclear strike with this sub and turn America into a large hot pocket with cheese. I thought Alec Baldwin and James Earl Jones were well cast and did great jobs in their parts. I didn't like Sean Connery or Sam Neil as Russians even though both are fine actors and have put in superb performances in other movies for example Connery's performances as James Bond is and always will be one of the best. I also liked him in Medicine Man and Highlander but I couldn't get into him in this movie. Peter Firth who plays the October's political officer rattles off more Russian dialogue in the scene where he and Connery are opening the boats orders than Connery did in the whole movie and he's no more Russian than Connery is. I expect a little more from Sean... Sam Neil is just as unconvincing as a Russian. I loved Neil in Jurassic Park, he was excellent. Loved him in The Final Conflict as Damien Thorne as well but he just wasn't right in this movie. This movie is from 1990 and you'll see old technology like noisy dot matrix printers on the American attack sub, corded phones and people wearing glasses with very large lenses hahahahahaha. In conclusion, if you want to see a much younger and better looking Alec Baldwin in the role that launched him to stardom this is the movie. Other than that read the book, it had a lot of details that made the story way better than was conveyed in this movie. By the way, Tom Clancy passed away in 2013. The bluray version has excellent picture quality and sound. This movie is a good "submarine" movie. It had some great looking models, the special effects were good for the time and and aside from the complaints I mentioned earlier Alec Baldwin, James Earl Jones, Sean Connery and Sam Neil all put in some great performances.

Good movie which you'll never get tired of watching.

Paramount studios released on both 4k UHD and Blu-ray this 1990 adaptation of the Tom Clancy novel that introduced his character of CIA analyst Jack Ryan (here played by Alec Baldwin) who in 1984 must figure out whether a seemingly rogue Soviet sub commander (played by Sean Connery) is about to launch a nuclear missile attack or is instead going to defect in that sub...Looking quite good in HD (I cannot view at present the UHD disc) porting over the extras from the DVD, though nothing new was added. Intelligent and sophisticated action/drama with a fine cast (including James Earl Jones) and direction by John McTiernan. Baldwin would play the role only this one time, for better or worse...