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LowComDom Performances Presents
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LowComDom Performances Presents
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Film Review - Hunt For Red October, The
The Tom Clancy books haven't done well as movies. Well ... if you've read the books, this should be taken as a compliment to the author. Clancy builds such great stories that you really need the depth a novel can provide to see the big picture.
The Hunt for Red October, one of Clancy's finest, is perhaps the easiest of his stories to translate to the screen. This is an action-packed film with spies and intrigue and torpedoes. Sean Connery is the renegade submarine captain whom everyone is hunting. James Earl Jones is a stretch as Admiral Greer. Again, if you've read the book, you would know the character would be white for historic racial reasons. A black man of this age would never have been admitted to the Naval Academy.
Alec Baldwin is believable as Jack Ryan. It would have been interesting to see if Baldwin could have pulled off the depth of the character that Harrison Ford has been asked to do in the latter Clancy films.
But all in all, this is an enjoyable summer action film. There's no nudity, but there's is killing and other violence. Red October doesn't accurately portray life aboard a submarine the way Crimson Tide does, but that is not its mission. This is a spy thriller first and foremost.
Film Facts
Directed by John McTiernan
Released in 1989
MPAA Rating: PG
Reviewed by Mongo
