A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

The Evaluation System Reviews by Title Reviews by Date

Reviews from Video Reviews of the Classics Personal Background

Title: The Sum of All Fears

Date Viewed: 7/13/02

Details:

Ben Affleck

Morgan Freeman

James Cromwell

Liev Schreiber

Bridget Moynahan

Philip Baker Hall

Ron Rifkin

Colm Feore

Michael Byrne (Grushkov)

Director: Phil Alden Robinson

Script: Tom Clancy (novel), Paul Attanasio (screenplay)

Score: Jerry Goldsmith

Score: +

The Review: Throw away the original Clancy novel, and what do you have? A damn good movie, that's what! An Israeli nuclear bomb is lost during the Sinai war, but ends up in play again decades later. Curious, but effective, casting of a small Neo-Nazi group as the villain trying to put the US and Russia at each others' throats. Suspenseful, gripping, edge-of-the-seat political thriller; quite entertaining. Even with all the hype that accompanies the filming of a well-known novel, accurately translated or not, this movie works well.

Ryan (Affleck) comes across as a much younger, less-experienced analyst than expected (indeed, he's not even engaged to the Cathy Muller character), but this also allows the movie's focus on the teamwork necessary to resolve all the intelligence issues. Freeman is engaging and very good as Agency director, but I'd've liked to see more of a kohai-sempai (*) relationship between the two. The President's cabinet is filled with a familiar set of venerable character actors, and these faces lend some verisimilitude; however, Cromwell is not cast as a likeable President, and even then, comes off much better in the movie than the original novel. Byrne is excellent in the minor advisory role of Grushkov; he deserves more attention after a long and mostly subtle career.

Effective score by Goldsmith. And someone has been reading their Glasstone (The Effects of Nuclear Weapons: 1977, DoD & DoE).

(*): see Rising Sun (book or movie) for more details: kohai / sempai is close to a mentor / junior partner-in-training relationship, and is presumed to exist in any senior-experienced / junior-novice pairing.

Back to the chronological list of reviews