All at Sea Season: The Hunt for Red October (Dir John McTiernan, 2h15m, 1990)

Between 1984 and his death in 2013, Tom Clancy wrote nineteen novels that changed action and spy literature in the post Cold-War, pre (and indeed post)-War on Terror era, and introduced the world to arguably the most famous post-Bond character in the genre, in the form of CIA analyst turned action hero turned Vice (and eventually)-President.

With his first novel, The Hunt for Red October (1984) launching the author overnight into the popular conscience, (buoyed in no short part by fellow Republican, Ronald Reagan), and kickstarting the techno-thriller, so a cinematic adaption was inevitable. The Hunt for Red October (1990), thus, is a riveting and fast-paced thriller, in which Sean Connery's Russian sub commander, and Alec Baldwin, the first actor to step into Jack Ryan's shoes, must outwit both the East and the West.

We begin in Russia, in 1984-a necessity, given that its original setting of 1990 became outdated by the collapse of the Soviet Union-and, similar to Master and Commander, fills in its gaps in quick succession with the presumed fate of the Red October before adding, in the baited hook that essentially propels the film for its entire runtime "Nothing you are about to see...Ever Happened". We are then introduced to, via an elaborate title sequence that introduces both veteran Ravius, (Connery), in the north of Russia, and via a painstakingly slow pan out, to the colossal bulk of Red October itself, and, via his cluttered desk and working environment, to Jack Ryan, on his way to meet his superior in the CIA, his tenuous connection to his family, and his fear of flying outlined in Tiernan's typical meticulous character introduction.

As Red October puts to sea, so Ravius reveals his plot; Connery understandably dominates this film, giving Ravius a single bloodymindedness and a drive that fully imparts his role as a veteran, respected even by the captains later sent to defeat him, including Tupolev (an early English role for Stellan Skarsgård), paired with a cunning that comes to the fore as the game of cat and mouse intensifies. Ravius' plot is simple-defect, together with his chief officers, to the United States, and he begins-as the film swaps from Russian to English for audience convenience-by killing the sub's political officer, and ordering the colossal submarine to change course to off the US coast.

 

Aboard the sub, much like Das Boot, there is a degree of intrigue, from Tim Curry's medical officer and Sam Neill's second in commander, whilst, whilst not at the scale of the previous film's stern to bow set, the sets remain cramped, and provide a great background to a firefight between men later in the film. The location is tense, cramped, and despite the far more high-tech world, at points remains claustrophobic, especially after the USSR and the US begin to hunt them down.

It is here, in one of the the sequences that masterfully introduces the idea of the tech thriller to the world, and provides a nail-biting moment, that the US Submarine, Dallas comes close to detecting the Red October, its radio operator detecting the ship before it mysterious disappears off both radar and sonar, soon revealled to be the work of Red October's caterpillar drive-whilst fictitious, the film would later go on to accidently leak the use of gravimetry as a form of tracking for the US Navy. The loss of contact with the sub, and the increasingly hostile massing of forces to find the errant submarine on the Russian side, thus introduces the Russian ambassador in the familiar form of Joss Ackland, cod Russian accent in tow, who basically does what Joss Ackland always does and provides us with an obsequious figurehead for the Russian forces, whilst Tupolev and his comrades set off in hot pursuit

It is here, in Washington, that Ryan enters the picture proper. Whilst he would truly become the protagonist of later films and novels, especially in the duology of Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, where Harrison Ford would take on the mantle, Jack Ryan here is simply the right man in the right place, albeit one who is prepared to go to quite extraordinary lengths to prove Ravius' innocence, even as everything points to him having gone rogue. Baldwin for his part perfectly provides this everyman sensibility, and a likeable charm; the scene in which he begins to posit that there may be more to Ravius and his submarine suddenly going dark, going off a single meeting and circumstantial evidence to raise an alternative hypothesis that Ravius is attempting to defect, a smartly done setpiece that's every bit as thrilling as the under-sea action

Given just three days to prove his hunch, so Ryan must track down Ravius and his elusive submarine, prove the captain's innocence and help him evade both Russian and American forces, and help him and his men defect to the USA, whilst Red October must deal with threats from without, as the Russians and Americans both hunt her down, and from within, as they are sabotaged, and it becomes a race against time for Ryan to find the submarine, and for Ravius to reach the United States without being eliminated by either site. What follows is the first great thriller of the 1990s, a film that slowly unspools, around its central duo of Connery and Baldwin, a web of intrigue, espionage and thrilling battles at, and below, sea

Rating: Highly Recommended

Next week, and indeed, next month, we turn to one of cinema's great cities, in the form of Rome, beginning the season with the Italian Neo-Realist masterpiece, Rome Open City


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