Michael Caton-Jones's Scottish period piece bears little connection to the Sir Walter Scott novel of the same name...
The film opens in the Scottish highlands, with Robert Roy McGregor and his men hunting down a bunch of cow thieves who have stolen several heads of His Lordship James Graham's cattle... The scene then switches to a sword-fighting contest attended by noblemen with longhair wigs, adorned shirts, soft colored coats, paleface make-up and conventional gestures...
MacGregor lives under the protection of a local lord named Marquis of Montrose... When he enters an ill-advised trade agreement with Montrose, he innocently leaves himself exposed to the malicious plots of Montrose's evil-doers... The unfolding of their perfidy is the most creative and pleasant part of the movie, though it takes a repugnant turn with a violent rape... When Rob Roy is finally compelled to rebel against the English soldiers, the action becomes well understood, ending with the predictable duel between him and an expert with the blade...
Liam Neeson injects heroism and passion to his character... He is intelligent, fair and virile... He carries his height with grace as the Scottish chieftain of a small community... He is a loving father, a passionate lover, and a noble husband, driven to desperate acts by dastardly villains... He'd rather die than tell a lie or betray a trust...
Oscar winner Jessica Lange gives the film class as the strong robust devoted wife, a proud peasant woman, brutally raped by an icy psychotic aristocrat... Lange's lines are filled with dignity and integrity: 'I will think on you dead, until my husband makes you so. And then I will think on you no more.'
John Hurt brings his usual clever touch with character roles to make Montrose something more than a greedy Marquis, ruthless with money and tempered by the English court's fashion for foppery... He is a pompous arrogant man with two villainous servants at his service... Honor, in his view, seems a quaint notion... He has two objectives: ruin the reputation of his rival, the Duke of Argyle, and to hunt down the fugitive MacGregor... He sends his soldiers to burn the Highlanders' homes, to kill their people and their livestock...
Tim Roththe perfect antithesis to the hero, is fearsome and strangely an effeminate enforcer... He is a penniless British aristocrat, a nasty 'hired sword' wonderfully evil, ravishing and murdering his way through the Scottish mist... His name is Archibald Cunningham... He turns out to be a liar, a thief and a murderer... He dismisses himself as 'but a bastard abroad, seeking his fortune and the favors of great men," and therefore can't care about anyone else: "Love is a dung hill and I am but a cock that climbs upon it to crow." He even jokes that he once raped a young boy whom he mistook for a girl...
Cunningham seems pathetic... He smiles foolishly, and utters words with affected refinement, but not terribly harmful-until a muscular swordsman insults him, and we discover that he's a cool head and an expert with a sword... He really does steal the film with a performance that earned him a Best Supporting Actor nomination...
And while Brian Cox is suitably odious as Killearn, Andrew Keir is Montrose's rival, the powerful local aristocrat, the Duke of Argyll, one of the few trustworthy men McGregor meets outside his own family...
Set in 18th-century Scotland, and with an atmospheric musical score, 'Rob Roy' is really a love story between a man and his wife, a recognizably human story, unjustly dwarfed by Mel Gibson's 'Braveheart,' that does tell essentially the same story of provincial resentment of overbearing English landlords...

I am a big fan of Ludlum's work, and of the Covert-one books, and I had often thought how incredible they would be made into a film. Imagine my excitement, then, on learning that such a movie actually existed! The 'Hades Factor' being the first in the series seemed an obvious place to start.
From the outset the film was disappointing. Simple elements from the film such as Griffin's first meeting with Smith are needlessly different from the book, and much less exhilarating. Several characters are poorly cast, too. For starters Dorff is woeful as Smith. Not a bad actor, just an incredibly bad choice as he is far too soft, and fails to exhibit many of the features that are definitive of John Smith.
Re-naming, re-assignment and even omission of certain characters further degrades this film. For example the removal of Victor Tremont and the entire back-story of the virus, including the involvement of VAXHAM makes the entire point to the film somewhat hazy. Marty Zellerbach is a very large part of the book, and in the seat he takes vary much a back seat (not to mention that the film character shares nothing in common with the character in the book) is another big mistake.
Rachel Russel is presumably supposed to be Randi Russel from the book. Not only is she supposed to be the sister of Sophie Amsden (should be called Sophia Russel) but she is also supposed to work from the CIA, NOT "Covert-one". Which brings me to my final point, and I think one of the most important. COVERT-ONE doesn't even exist at this point! Not until the second book of the series is Covert-One devised by the president as a preventative measure against further biological terrorism.
To be honest I could go on all day. In short - if you like the books and want to see a good adaptation, I'm afraid you'll be bitterly disappointed. Even as an action movie it is thoroughly average, mainly due to very lack-luster editing and poor effects. The bumbled story line and dull-as-ditch-water script are the final nails in the very cheap coffin of this film.