The Hunt for Red October (1990)

**_Submarine strategies with Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin and Scott Glenn_**

Just before Gorbachev’s rise to power in the USSR, a notable naval commander (Connery) takes a technologically advanced submarine on its maiden voyage to conduct missile drills off of America's east coast. Something happens to draw the ire of the Soviet brass while a CIA analyst (Baldwin) believes the captain might be defecting. James Earl Jones, Sam Neill and Courtney B Vance are on hand.

Based on the 1984 Tom Clancy novel, “The Hunt for Red October” (1990) is a well-done Cold War thriller and the first of currently five movies involving the character of Jack Ryan. The next two are “Patriot Games” (1992) and “Clear and Present Danger” (1994) featuring Harrison Ford in the role. Then Ben Affleck would take over for one installment, “The Sum of All Fears” (2002), before Chris Pine’s “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” (2014).

To appreciate this movie, you have to be in the mood for military-oriented drama/suspense rooted in global politics and an all-male cast (except for a cameo by Gates McFadden). Like “Ice Station Zebra” (1968), the scenes mostly consist of men dialoguing & strategizing in the cramped quarters of submarines or vessels; as well as political rooms/offices. A saboteur is no doubt lurking nearby.

The movie runs 2 hours, 15 minutes, and was shot in America, e.g. Port Valdez, Alaska (opening sequence); Lake James, North Carolina (closing scene); the state of Washington (Port Angeles & Keyport); naval bases in Los Angeles and Connecticut; USS Blueback; San Diego; as well as Liverpool, England (standing-in for Moscow).

GRADE: B

When British intelligence sends some photographs to CIA analyst "Jack Ryan" (Alec Baldwin) he immediately races to his boss (James Earl Jones) with what seems like a fantastic tale about a submarine that uses a hydro-dynamic drive. That renders it almost silent to traditional sonar and therefore a threat to NATO. Next thing we know, the Soviet's have mobilised their Atlantic fleet and it occurs to "Ryan" that they could have a defection on their hands. He now has to convince his sceptical superiors that this isn't just a wild goose chase, and that "Ramius" (Sean Connery) has a plan to bring his state of the art warship to the USA. Meantime, onboard the "Red October" we discover a complex plan that will test the mettle of the crew - officers and men alike, as they ostensibly conduct routine sea trials and missile drills - but with an ulterior motive that the audience knows all about, but the crew - well they're very much in the dark as the peril grows. This is a solidly entertaining story of political intrigue and deception and the claustrophobic settings of the submarines work well to give both Connery (who makes no attempt at all to disguise his thick Scots accent) and the much better than usual Baldwin room to manoeuvre. The supporting cast isn't the best - Scott Glenn, Sam Neill and Courtney B. Vance could have been cheerfully fired from a torpedo tubes early on, but they feature only sparingly as the adventure builds to an excitingly paced denouement. Could it really have happened?

"The Hunt for Red October" is an extremely well paced film throughout and it never leaves us in any doubt that Jack Ryan's assumptions about captain Marko Ramius are unfailingly correct and if anything could have sapped the interest and made this nothing more than an overlong and water logged exercise in boredom then this is it, so it is amazing this never actually happens and indeed the opposite just happens to be true. The film also features a wonderfully tense game of cat and mouse through the briny depths as the submarines Konovalov and Red October track each other and it provides a very satisfying conclusion to captain Viktor Tupolev's pursuit of Ramius in which Ramius outsmarts the other captain with fatal results for his opponent.