The Sum of All Fears

Plot synopsis:
During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Egyptian and Syrian forces are on the verge of defeating Israel. As a last-ditch precautionary measure, a nuclear-armed A-4 Skyhawk is launched to ensure that Israeli ground forces are not completely overrun. The fighter jet is engaged by a Syrian surface-to-air missile battery and shot down. Among the widely scattered wreckage littering the barren desert below is an intact nuke, burrowed deep into the crater left by the crashing debris.Fast-forward 29 years to 2002. US President J. Robert Fowler (James Cromwell) and his national security team are at Mt. Weather, Virginia participating in a nuclear war drill. After the drill, the President dispatches CIA Director William Cabot (Morgan Freeman) on an inspection tour of Russian nuclear sites according to the terms of the START arms treaty.At CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, young analyst Jack Ryan (Ben Affleck) is part of a group watching current video of Russian President Zorkin and sarcastically commenting on his recent weight gain. Simultaneously, a shadowy Neo-Nazi group is meeting in Vienna. Their leader, Richard Dressler (Alan Bates) laments the impotence of modern Europe in the face of global dominance by the United States and Russia. On the Golan Heights, an Arab scrap metal dealer is excavating the Israeli plane crash site from 1973. He strikes a hard object a few feet below the ground and realizes it is some type of bomb. Thinking it valuable, he and his helper carefully finish uncovering the weapon and use a hoist to lift it onto their truck.The next morning, Jack Ryan is lazing in bed with girlfriend Dr. Cathy Muller (Bridget Moynihan) when he receives an emergency phone call summoning him to Langley. President Zorkin has dropped dead of an apparent heart attack and has been quickly succeeded by Alexander Nemerov (Ciaran Hinds). As Ryan hurriedly dresses, his girlfriend wonders aloud what would constitute an emergency for a "historian." Arriving at CIA headquarters, Ryan is collared by Director Cabot and hustled into a meeting. As part of his analyst job, Ryan had previously prepared an intelligence estimate on Nemerov. Cabot unexpectedly orders Ryan to accompany him on the trip to Russia.In the desert, an international arms dealer named Olson (Colm Feore) meets with the Arab scrap metal merchant and quickly recognizes the type of bomb he sees before him. He tells the Arab that the bomb is worthless, but offers to give him $400 for it since the man lost a son in the war. Once in possession of the weapon, Olson contacts Dressler and offers to sell him the bomb for $50 million.After a brief meeting in Moscow with Nemerov, Ryan and Talbot inspect a Russian nuclear site. Ryan shrewdly notices that three top nuclear scientists are absent from the facility. When questioned by Ryan, the Russian host gives a pat and unsatisfactory explanation. Cabot comments that if someone wanted to build a clandestine nuke, the missing scientists are the exact three they would need.Returning to Washington, Ryan is invited by Cabot to attend a black-tie gala at a posh hotel where President Fowler is speaking. Ryan and Cathy are thoroughly enjoying the evening until the President's speech is interrupted by aides who quickly whisk him away from the podium. A good percentage of the attendees also stand and exit. Ryan and Cabot hurry back to the White House situation room where they learn that Russian forces have shelled the breakaway province of Chechnya with chemical weapons, inflicting massive casualties. Those in the room debate the proper US response, eventually favoring some form of diplomatic recognition for the Chechens. Ryan speaks up and suggests that President Nemerov had nothing to do with the attack, that a separate hardline faction may have acted without his approval. Ryan's hypothesis falls flat with the others in attendance. After the meeting, Ryan finds a TV in another room and watches Nemerov give a conventional hardline speech justifying Russia's actions. After the speech, however, Nemerov boards an elevator in the Kremlin and angrily queries a senior advisor about the source of the chemical attack. He learns that hardline generals in the military acted on their own, just as Ryan had suggested. Nemerov issues orders to make the generals quietly disappear.In Vienna, Dressler's group meets to discuss their plan for the future of Europe. Dressler is seeking to provoke a nuclear confrontation between the United States and Russia. With the centers of capitalism and communism destroyed, fascism can arise once more in Europe. When one of the men expresses his doubts about the strategy, he is strangled to death.In the meantime, a CIA operative named John Clark (Liev Schreiber) has been dispatched to Russia to investigate the disappearance of the three nuclear scientists. He manages to pinpoint an abandoned Soviet military base in the Ukraine where the men might be working. Cabot sends Ryan to assist him and they manage to penetrate the compound, which shows no signs of current activity. Once inside, they discover that the entire nuclear team has been murdered. There is also clear evidence of nuclear weapons activity, but it looks as if the finished product has already been crated and shipped. Ryan asks a colleague at Langley to track down recent shipping activity from the area, and he reports that a large crate was indeed picked up and sent from Kiev to its final destination by air and sea. That destination was the port of Baltimore.At a dockside warehouse, one of Dressler's true believers uses a forklift to load the refrigerator-sized crate onto a pickup truck. The deadly cargo is delivered beneath Baltimore's NFL football stadium, where it is uncrated and revealed to be a cigarette vending machine with a small nuclear weapon concealed inside. President Fowler is scheduled to attend a game at the stadium later in the day.Ryan calls Cabot to warn him about the threat, not realizing that he is attending the football game with the President. Boarding a helicopter for Baltimore, Ryan keeps trying to get through and finally reaches Cabot. Cabot suddenly realizes with horror that the stadium is the likely target. The President is immediately hustled out and his motorcade speeds away from the stadium, but they are unable to outrun the shock wave from the exploding nuke. The Presidential motorcade is blasted off the highway as Ryan's helicopter is also knocked to the ground. Military rescue personnel retrieve the slightly-injured President from his limousine and put him aboard Air Force One. A stunned Ryan is able to escape from the wreckage of the helicopter. In the distance, he sees a mushroom cloud forming over Baltimore. He can only hope that Cathy is safe.As the President tries to sort things out aboard Air Force One and Nemerov tries to maintain a safe distance from the tragedy, a corrupt Russian Air Force general in the pay of Dressler tells a squadron of his Backfire bomber pilots that the US has attacked Moscow. He orders an attack on a US aircraft carrier in the North Sea. The Backfires launch a salvo of cruise missiles at the ship, turning it into a sea of flame. President Fowler orders a retaliatory strike by F-16s against the Russian airbase from which the Backfires were launched. The US and Russia teeter on the edge of nuclear war, just as Dressler had hoped. Each escalation by one side is matched by the other.Convinced that Nemerov didn't order the attack, Ryan urgently requests a soil sample from the blast site. An analysis conclusively proves that the plutonium came from a US nuclear processing facility, not Russia. Ryan manages to locate the mortally injured William Cabot, who suggests that he enlist the help of John Clark in tracing the bomb's origin. Cabot then expires and Ryan, before leaving, takes a plastic bag holding Cabot's effects. Clark, in the Middle East, learns that the plutonium was provided to Israel in 1968. He tracks down the Arab scrap metal dealer, who is dying of radiation sickness. The man tells him that he sold the bomb to Olson, the arms dealer. A CIA hacker is able to penetrate Olson's computer and link him to Dressler.Racing against time as missile silos are opened and strategic bombers are launched, Ryan gets a policeman to drive him to the Pentagon. Using Bill Cabot's pass card, Ryan makes it into the National Military Command Center. He convinces an Air Force General to send a message directly to Nemerov, explaining Dressler's plot and begging him to stand down. Only thirty seconds before missile launch, Nemerov backs away from Armageddon.A few weeks later, as Presidents Fowler and Nemerov are signing a new arms reduction treaty, a series of actions around the world avenge the unforgivable plot that nearly led to WW III. In Damascus, John Clark enters Olson's apartment and slits the arms dealer's throat. In a snowy Russian forest, KGB assassins run the rogue Air Force general to ground and shoot him. And in Vienna, as a panicked Dressler tries to escape his fate, a bomb destroys his car in a fiery blast.

Tags: cult, humor, murder, suspenseful

Review:
I read the book "The Sum of All Fears" with fascination--Palestenians discover an Isreali nuclear device lost when the aircraft is shot down in the six day war, sell it to Al Queda, and the arab terrorists proceed to blow up Denver with said nuke.I was very much looking forward to this movie, only to find that for fear of offending Al Queda, the director and screenwriters had substituted some ridiculous plot about German Nazi's and turned the whole thing into a melodramatic hash.This could have been a GREAT, prophetic, movie.
The story itself is not really too bad and if you forget the title, the mention of Tom Clancy and Jack Ryan, then the movie is decent enough.
First the casting of Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan just doesn't make sense, chronologically (he's already been played by the much older Harrison Ford and Alec Baldwin) or physically  Affleck just isn't commanding enough for the role.
Secondly the movie is simply capitalizing on North America's new found fear of terrorism on home turf, and thirdly the screenwriter Paul Attanasio took huge liberties with the Tom Clancy novel, including, in a stroke of misguided political correctness, changing the bad guys from Middle Eastern to Nazis.
Morgan Freeman also didn't seem to have a solid cast in this movie.The story was fairly captivating however, Cromwell was good to watch as always and Morgan Freeman did his best given the role Overall worth a rent but probably not a buy guys.
People seem to expect jack Ryan movies to be more or less the way they imagine the books to be.
The sum of their fears." It deals with CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Ben Affleck) along with a ranking member (Morgan Freeman) of Presidential administration must thwart the plans of a terrorist faction that threatens to induce a catastrophic conflict between the United States and Russia's newly elected president by detonating a nuclear weapon at a football game in Baltimore.
The picture has a very good support cast who gives excellent performances such as James Cromwell as President Fowler , Bruce McGill as National Security Adviser , John Beasley as General Lasseter , Philip Baker Hall as Defense Secretary , Joseph Sommer as Senator , Michael Byrne , Liev Schreiber , Alan Bates , Sven-Ole Thorsen , Ron Rifkin , Colm Feore and special mention to Ciaran Hinds as Russia President .
The picture is well directed by Phil Alden Robinson , though Philip Noyce, director of previous entries, was offered to direct but turned it down and Wolfgang Petersen was also offered the chance to direct but declined.This blockbuster is an entertaining adaptation of the novel by Tom Clancy , companion to ¨The hunt for Red October¨ by John MacTiernan with Alec Balwin and Sean Connery , followed by ¨Patriot games¨ (1992) by Philip Noyce with Harrison Ford taking over the role of Ryan from Alec Baldwin and again ¨Clear and present danger¨(1994) by Philip Noyce with Harrison Ford and Anne Archer .
He's young, good-looking, intelligent and Affleck's low-key acting fits the Ryan role like a glove.
If field of dreams is any indication, he is just good a writer as he is as a director, and I am excited to see what other sorts of ideas he might produce.The movie also has tremendous performances by Morgan Freeman, and (surprisingly) Ben Affleck.
The bottom line is this: If you love Tom Clancy and you've read every one of his books,  you're probably going to hate this movie.
The location of the action (Baltimore), the time (2002), the time the activity took place in Jack Ryan's life (early), the level of his position within the CIA (low), the lack of any other fears to sum up, all were very different from the book and while I was able to enjoy the film as I watched it is has been bothering me more as I reflect on it.So my recommendation is see the movie then read the book, I have found that to be true with most of Clancy's work.
Oliver Cromwell plays the dumb president, Morgan Freeman plays the slightly more intelligent Seceretary of State John Cabot, and Ben Afflect plays our hero, CIA operative Jack Ryan.
However, the story in which CIA analyst Jack Ryan tries to uncover a plot to bring Russia and the United States to the brink of nuclear war, more than makes up for the lack of characterization.
In fact, if the names involved weren't "Jack Ryan" and Tom Clancy, and if we hadn't actually seen some terrorist disasters in the last eight months, I would've thought it a really well-done intelligence thriller, looking at how Russia and the U.S. might head towards nuclear war if somehow a nuke went off in the U.S. during a time of tension.
And than the unimaginable happens: a nuclear bomb explodes in U.S. city and America is quick to blame the Russians...What I probably liked most about this movie was the acting by Morgan Freeman.
Even though I don't consider it to be very likely that a Neo-Nazi group would be able to start a nuclear war between Russia and the U.S., that doesn't mean that a terrorist attack with a 'dirty' bomb isn't possible.Overall I would say about this movie that Morgan Freeman's performance the best reason to watch it.
I'm not a Tom Clancy fan but his books made big money and i guess he must be doing something right.I never read any of his books but i've seen all the Jack Ryan movies and i like all other 3 of them,this one is pretty bad.The plot is totally off the wall,and since it must be similar in the book ,i guess he managed to explain things in some rational manner in the book that Hollywood didn't care to transfer to the movie.As it is,you get the impression this was written by some megalomaniac screenwriter who was so caught up in the importance of his story that didn't care about anything that has to do with basic common sense.All that matters in this story is that everything can and will go wrong,and that the US and Russia will be unable to do anything about it without the help of Mr.Ryan.
However, as it moved into the heavy action the plot became rather trite.Cliché #1: The young upstart with great potential but no experience (Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan) who is right about everything, but the old guard (James Cromwell as President Fowler and his advisors) refuses to listen to him.
Surprisingly, The Sum Of All Fears is my favourite film version of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan novels.
Enjoyable but also a disappointing two hours, an extra half hour to an hour would have given it the missing edge this movie seriously needed in giving its characters a bit more development and a lot of modernisation to update the 15 year old novel would have helped this movie immensley by adding more action.People who followed the book, might remember Tom Clancy's amazing prediction of the Israel-Palestine peace accord over a decade ago(now in tatters), middle eastern nuclear terrorism and that Israel having an illegal nuclear weapons program for the last forty years!
Being a Tom Clancy fan and a follower of the books, you start to get a feel for what could be converted into a movie maintaining the thrilling nail biting story with the the key characters being utilised with the upto date fashion of the world of geo-politics or current affairs and trends e.g Red October(cold war), Patriot Games(irish terrorism) and Clear President Danger(columbian drugs).This movie based on the book fails to maintain the key bad guys in the novel, Arab Terrorists trying to sabotage the Israel-Palestine Peace talks (tip for a movie)!
This film tries to make us believe unconvincingly that there is a both a threat by WWII German neo-nazi's decendants and the poor loser of the cold war, former Soviet Union, now a part of Nato for the past year, duh!This story is so out of touch even the winning combination of Harrison Ford and Philip Noyce the Director of Patriot Games and Clear Present Danger, avoided this script and turned it down like a four day old sandwich and who could blame them!
Not impressed, I only enjoyed one bit which you just have to watch the trailer for.I have always been a fan of the character Jack Ryan,  it wasn't even that Ben Affleck did it badly.
I could have gotten over the fact that they changed to villians in the name of political correctness, but fundamentally changing the personalities of the characters ruined the film, on top of a terribly written script and gross over-acting.I was somewhat skeptical of Ben Affleck taking over the part of Jack Ryan, because he seemed too young.
Affleck's character seemed exaggerated and the actions he took would most likely not be possible in real life.Morgan Freeman should have known better than to take this script, although he did do an admirable job with a bad movie.There were so many characters that remained unidentified, and it was too long.
For those of you who have seen The Jack Ryan films or read the Tom Clancy novels (Hunt For Red October, Patriot Games, Clear Present Danger) you would likely be familiar with the character of Jack Ryan.
Despite that, I found the movie to be interesting though not quite as good the other Jack Ryan films..
First of all, this movie is about the Germans trying to ridicule both Russians and Americans by stealing the bombs from both country and framing them like the bomb was launched by the middle east by placing the bomb in a Baltimore NFL stadium where the president is meeting at.Secondly, Ben Affleck did okay as novice type of Jack Ryan in a weak way.
Ben Affleck isn't as good as some of the other actors to have played Jack Ryan, but I think he does a decent job.
This was then used by the group against the United States for it's (perceived, although arguable) propping up of the 'Isreali Terrorist State'.When it came time for Hollywood to make a film of it however things changed course and it was a radical right-wing group working for Aryan(?) supremacy that became the villain.I have to laugh when a book following the fictional, although believable, course of events when a Muslim group bombs the financial backers of the Jewish state gets engineered into 'euro Nazis' attack the U.S for world domination.The idealogical stranglehold of Hollywood continues and anyone who questions it is usually sanctioned and/or accused of antisemitism.Let's see if this one makes it to the board....
Goodness knows how the opinions and advice of CIA agent Jack Ryan are supposed to hold weight with those in power because from where I was sat he looked like a delivery boy who had accidentally strayed into a top-level meeting and wanted to see how long he could stay before someone noticed.
Of course Affleck is no Ford (or Baldwin, for that matter), but is surprisingly effective in this re-imagined version of a younger Jack Ryan, which still feels enough like the original character to work.
Phil Alden Robinson's direction is taut and exciting.While "The Sum of All Fears" doesn't equal "The Hunt for Red October" or "Clear and Present Danger", it stacks up favorably against the uneven "Patriot Games", and is a welcome addition to the Jack Ryan film franchise..
Nothing in the movie is as it should be in the book and, to make matters worse, any connection to previous versions of Jack Ryan are also destroyed by ignoring or completely changing aspects of his personal life.
This movie isso lame and stupid that it might as well have had Steven Seagalas the lead.Please Mr. Freeman, I know you like to work, but as a role modelfor future actors I would think you might take a smaller paycheckfor a film that is actually worth making..
(That last aspect falls to Ben Affleck alone by the way) Perhaps if they would have made an effort to make this movie a prequel instead of a sequel it would have made some sense Ryan and Clarke seem to be about 20 years younger.
Movie Review: "The Sum of All Fears" (2002)Paramount Pictures presents this "war-on-terror" thriller as an event movie for the masses in May 2002, which hardly delivers any suspense in an 115-Minute-Editorial by just ultra-conversative footage-given to editor Neil Travis (1936-2012), where just puzzling scenes get mixed together in order put the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (DCI) William Cabot, performed with professionalism and picture-carrying convictions by Morgan Freeman, but then due to a miscast Ben Affleck in the role of 30-year-old Jack Ryan, who turns from bureau analyst to his first mission as CIA spy operative, when this flaw-struck adaptation from one of the weaker Tom Clancy novels falls short in order to build Paramount-desired reboot efforts of a Harrison Ford led smash hits from the 1990s with an already-established Ryan in "Patriot Games" (1992) and "Clear and Present Danger" (1994); a circumstance, which brings high-end budget-granting producer Mace Neufeld into poor decision-making with regard to Director Phil Alden Robinson, at age 51, who should have enforce a proper pre-production for actor Ben Affleck, who completely missed action high pitch moment for international audiences to share on, who are just able to turn their heads with two massive scenes of left-out-cold disaster as an attacked aircraft carrier going up in flames, while the CIA-initiated task forces by all-too-depressed playing under-appreciated actor James Cromwell as U.S. American president gives orders without delegating his staff to "Martial Law" proportions, when threats are at its peak at an game-given American Football station in late Tom Clancy's former hometown of Baltimore only to get pushed into safety, when on-screen terror takes its turn to fully-missing character confrontations for Jack Ryan despite a satellite phone call in a mid-air helicopter.© 2018 Felix Alexander Dausend
The Sum of All Fears is a good movie with a well written storyline and a great cast.It is a very good thriller and it has some great special effects as well,but I didn't find any of the action or dialogue very breathtaking.Its definitely the worst Jack Ryan film to date,although I did really enjoy Ben Affleck as Ryan,he's certainly no Harrison Ford but he was definitely better than Alec Baldwin,I would have liked to see more Ryan films with Affleck in the main role but it dosen't seem like that will be happening anytime soon.I wasn't impressed with the amount of screen time Morgan Freeman received,they made it seem like he was a very main character in this but he probably had 20 minutes of screen time,I was surprised to see James Cromwell in this,I thinks he's an underrated actor who would rarely star in movies like this,but he played an important role and did a great job.Fans of previous Jack Ryan films won't love it,but you won't hate it either,Sum of All Fears is an enjoyable movie that I would recommend to anyone looking for a good thriller or drama if it's ever on television.
I've never read the book that it was based off of, but I know that this movie was a pretty good action-packed time for everyone involved.
Plot is Cold War themed and finds America in a sweat when it is found that renegade terrorists have a nuclear weapon in their possession; just as a new supposed radical president takes up office in Russia.Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's futures, and we are all mortal.2002 saw two great thrillers released that starred Ben Affleck, one was Changing Lanes, the other was this Jack Ryan based effort that attempted to reboot the series.
The film isn't solely a Jack Ryan movie.
In this film, Jack Ryan is played by Ben Affleck, who is certainly no slouch in front of the camera.
Mobilized into action by CIA director William Cabot (Morgan Freeman), Jack Ryan (Ben Affleck) follows a danger-ridden trail to a shocking conclusion: terrorists plan to provoke a war between the U.S. and Russia - by detonating a nuclear weapon at a championship football game!" according to Paramount's home video edition..."The Sum of All Fears" was criticized for changing the original novel's Middle-Eastern terrorists to Neo-Nazis.
They also made the Denver bomb a real Baltimore nuclear threat, but do not explain Mr. Affleck's invulnerability...****** The Sum of All Fears (5/29/02) Phil Alden Robinson ~ Ben Affleck, Morgan Freeman, James Cromwell, Liev Schreiber.
Then the unthinkable happens: a nuclear bomb explodes in a U.S. city, and America is quick to blame the Russians.Jack Ryan was a role that seemed to belong to Harrison Ford in the other Clancy films, but here that role is assumed very well indeed by Ben Affleck.
The movie started off slow and somewhat boring but by the end I was hooked on every scene.This film is about Jack Ryan who works for the CIA.
May choosing ben affleck as jack ryan is not a decision but apart from this the film contained a lot of events regarding war , terrorism, espionage and spy games.
This is my favorite of all the Jack Ryan movies and i thought Ben Affleck was very watchable in the role his chemistry with Bridget Moynnahan, Morgan Freeman and Liev Schreiber was great.
Another Jack Ryan, CIA super agent, outing with Harrison Ford - Clear and present Danger - held more closely to the book plot and was enjoyable to watch.
And in a way it is, big things happen in this movie but...I like this type of film, Patriot Games/Clear and present danger were excellent political thrillers and The hunt for Red October remains for me unsurpassed as far as claustrophobic tension goes.