Lost and nearly forgotten, squarely in the middle of the five portrayals, is Ben Affleck, whose The Sum of All Fears <\/i><\/strong>(2002) was a commercial success<\/span><\/a> yet received largely middling reviews and failed to produce a follow-up Ryan adventure with him in the lead.<\/span><\/p>\n Taking over for Harrison Ford after Patriot Games <\/i>(1992) and Clear and Present Danger <\/i>(1994) \u2014 already a shift from Alec Baldwin\u2019s The Hunt for Red October<\/i> (1990) \u2014 Affleck suffered from inevitable comparisons to his predecessors. (One would hope Alden Ehrenreich has him on speed dial.) Dubbed<\/span><\/a> a \u201cpretty boy\u201d and a \u201cfrat boy\u201d by critics, Affleck was further deemed \u201clightweight,\u201d \u201cfeeble,\u201d \u201cseverely miscast,\u201d and \u201cineffectual,\u201d while the film\u2019s rebooted timeline with the suddenly twentysomething Ryan in the 21st century further baffled numerous writers. In his Rolling Stone <\/i>review<\/span><\/a>, Peter Travers said, \u201cChronology hasn’t been this royally f***** with since Memento<\/i>,\u201d though the youthful approach wasn\u2019t the filmmakers\u2019 original plan.<\/span><\/p>\n According to series producer Mace Neufeld<\/a><\/span>, the production team had Ford and Patriot Games<\/i> and Clear and Present Danger<\/i> director Phillip Noyce on board, and worked with screenwriters Paul Attanasio (Quiz Show<\/i>; Donnie Brasco<\/i>) and Daniel Pyne (Doc Hollywood<\/i>; Fracture<\/i>) \u201cfor well over a year and a half to try and bring some vitality and update\u201d the source material, which was published in 1991. Unable to \u201click that boot\u201d and \u201cserve a movie star of Harrison\u2019s stature,\u201d the production was nearly abandoned when Ford and Noyce left to pursue other projects. Shortly thereafter, Paramount called \u201csaying they\u2019d heard from Ben Affleck\u2019s agent and he was interested in playing Jack Ryan.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The possibilities afforded by a younger, more mobile, pre-Deputy Director Ryan gave the filmmakers the narrative solutions they sought without A-list lead actor hurdles, placing the fledgling desk jockey alongside CIA Director William Cabot (Morgan Freeman) on a diplomatic mission to meet new Russian President Nemerov (Ciar\u00e1n Hinds), on whom Ryan is an expert \u2014 at least from a research standpoint. The pair also examine the country\u2019s nuclear weapons facility, where they notice that three scientists are missing, setting off a suspenseful race to uncover a plot by neo-Nazi Richard Dressler (Alan Bates) to detonate a refurbished nuke on U.S. soil with an end game of the U.S. and Russia fighting each other, after which his radical group can take control.<\/span><\/p>\n With Noyce busy making Rabbit-Proof Fence <\/i>and The Quiet American<\/i>, director Phil Alden Robinson (Sneakers<\/i>; Field of Dreams<\/i>) stepped in and delivered a well-crafted thriller that found a few critical supporters, including Roger Ebert<\/span><\/a>. Though he noted \u201cRyan\u2019s one-man actions in post-bomb Baltimore are unlikely and way too well-timed,\u201d the late great gave the movie 3.5 stars, praising the filmmakers\u2019 \u201cspellbinding job of cranking up the tension\u201d and creating \u201ca portrait of convincing realism,\u201d as well as the \u201cfrightening special effects.\u201d He also called the supporting cast, which includes James Cromwell, Bruce McGill, Philip Baker Hall, Liev Schreiber, and Ron Rifkin, \u201csome of the most convincing character actors in the movies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n But amidst Ebert\u2019s acclaim, he also pointed out a key factor that impacted the film\u2019s reach. Writing less than nine months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he pined \u201cfor the innocent days when a movie like The Sum of All Fears<\/i> could be enjoyed as a \u2018thriller,\u2019\u201d calling it \u201cnot a thriller but a confirmer, confirming our fears that the world is headed for disaster.\u201d Returning to the film\u2019s more problematic elements, and looping in the almost purely plot-functional presence of Ryan\u2019s girlfriend Cathy Muller (Bridget Moynahan), he also acknowledged that \u201cwithout the obligatory Hollywood softeners, audiences might flee the theater in despair,\u201d and that with them \u201cwe can walk out smiling, unless we remember that much of Baltimore is radioactive rubble.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Likewise largely positive toward the film<\/span><\/a>, the San Francisco Chronicle\u2019s Mick LaSalle nonetheless confronted the \u201cawkward fact\u201d that The Sum of All Fears<\/i> \u201c<\/i>was made for an audience who could watch it at a cozy remove and be vicariously thrilled at the sight of America being attacked\u201d \u2014 i.e., \u201ca different audience from the one that’s about to see it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Other critics, however, were less kind toward the film\u2019s overlaps with and handling of post-9\/11 anxieties. In his Wall Street Journal review<\/span><\/a>, Joe Morgenstern said, \u201cAlmost daily, it seems, someone tells us that a terrorist strike with a nuclear device in an American city is all but inevitable. Confronting that horrendous eventuality will be hard enough. The last thing we need is entertainment that evokes the horror and then trivializes it with cheesy heroics. Never has a movie taken on a subject of greater immediacy, or handled it more ineptly.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Starting with the Cold War uncertainties of The Hunt for Red October, <\/i>each Jack Ryan film has been a gamble with relevancy as filmmakers attempt to tastefully shepherd a contemporary global concern onscreen while it\u2019s still weighing on viewers\u2019 minds. By Neufeld\u2019s report, production on The Sum of All Fears <\/i>wrapped in June 2001, and though editing was still taking place in September and tonal styles conceivably could have been altered to reflect the post-9\/11 world, the filmmakers \u201chad no intention or desire to change it or anything as a result of the attacks.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Whatever one\u2019s interpretation of the film\u2019s approach to a terrorist bombing of a major U.S. city and the aftermath, it could have been an even more timely story. The villains in Clancy\u2019s novel are Arab nationalists and were changed because Neufeld and the filmmakers felt they had become a clich\u00e9 choice. The team also may have been swayed<\/span><\/a> by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which spent two years lobbying Paramount to avoid a decision that it claimed could have \u201ca negative impact on the lives of ordinary American Muslims, particularly children.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n But beyond the political ramifications that may have delayed Paramount\u2019s desire for an immediate sequel, Affleck\u2019s subsequent choices didn\u2019t inspire much confidence in a second Ryan adventure with the series\u2019 reigning star. In the wake of The Sum of All Fears<\/i>, leading man opportunities didn\u2019t dry up, but they came in the form of the critically maligned<\/span><\/a> Daredevil<\/i> (2003) and box-office flops<\/span><\/a> Gigli<\/i> (2003), Paycheck<\/i> (2003), Jersey Girl<\/i> (2003), Surviving Christmas<\/i> (2003) and Man About Town<\/i> (2006). Even after the four-year cold streak, when Affleck returned to his strong suit of supporting performances with Hollywoodland<\/i> (2006) and made his acclaimed directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone <\/i>(2007), it didn’t lead to him anchoring The Cardinal of the Kremlin <\/i>or another Ryan tale. <\/span><\/p>\n His friend Matt Damon\u2019s success with The Bourne Identity<\/i>, released two weeks after The Sum of All Fears <\/i>and a near-equal box-office hit<\/span><\/a>, likewise didn\u2019t help. While the friends were then still considered somewhat of a package deal thanks to frequent onscreen collaborations and jointly running HBO\u2019s Project Greenlight<\/i>, Damon\u2019s series\u2019 continuation with The Bourne Supremacy <\/i>(2004) widened the growing chasm between their stardom and sent them on wildly different career trajectories that continue today.<\/span><\/p>\n Unfairly lumped into the string of disappointments that briefly derailed Affleck\u2019s career, The Sum of All Fears<\/i> deserves a better reputation than the casual dismissal it often receives. Sixteen years removed from the hyper-relevancy and reboot-averseness surrounding its release, Robinson\u2019s film can be better appreciated as an intelligent thriller whose themes remain decidedly modern. Considering renewed U.S.-Russian tensions, the story\u2019s nuclear escalation is arguably more potent now than in 2002, while the peacemaking of the final scenes serves as an even greater reminder of what international relations could and should be.<\/span><\/p>\n When Amazon\u2019s Jack Ryan series debuts this weekend, John Krasinski will become the fifth actor to play Tom Clancy\u2019s CIA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":547,"featured_media":10112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381,1399],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","category-looking-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/547"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/sum-of-all-fears-DI.jpg\")
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