Review of Patriot Games (1992) by Phil C — 03 Dec 2010

Comparing the various Clancy adaptations is really interesting because the first thing each of them does is to basically leave the source material behind and strike out on their own.

That's no bad thing because Clancy's novels tend to be unfilmable. Pages and pages of monotonous, and unnecessary, details on the inner workings of submarines and various firearms obscures the more interesting political intrigues at hand. Patriot Games is a prime example; potentially interesting political situation with an American Irish CIA analyst intruding into Irish republican politics lost amid pages and pages of nonsense.

Interestingly, director Philip Noyce doesn't spend a lot of time trying to resurrect those threads. They are there, to some extent, but this film decides to focus much more pointedly on the Ryan family's role in events. That's why the casting of Harrison Ford was, contrary to popular opinion, a good choice for this entry into the franchise. His predecessor in Hunt for Red October, Alec Baldwin, was never a creditable family man. With Ford; when his on screen wife and daughter are in pain; you believe that he's in pain as well.

That does mean some of Ryan's character is lost along the way but, really, that assumes the character was fully formed in Clancy's novels and I don't think that's ever true until perhaps Executive Orders. Patriot Games isn't a great espionage thriller or a faithful adaptation of the original novel; but it is a believable family drama and as that's the tone the movie is going for: I'd say that makes it a success.