The Hunt for Red October

The Hunt for Red October is a 1990 espionage thriller based on Tom Clancy's novel of the same name. It was directed by John McTiernan and stars Sean Connery as Captain Marko Ramius and Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan. The film received highly positive reviews from critics and was one of the top grossing films of the year, grossing $122 million in North America and $200 million worldwide. The film won the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing in 1991.
"IN NOVEMBER OF 1984, SHORTLY BEFORE GORBACHEV CAME TO POWER, A TYPHOON-CLASS SOVIET SUB SURFACED JUST SOUTH OF THE GRAND BANKS. 
"IT THEN SANK IN DEEP WATER, APPARENTLY SUFFERING A RADIATION PROBLEM. UNCONFIRMED REPORTS INDICATED SOME OF THE CREW WERE RESCUED. 
"BUT ACCORDING TO REPEATED STATEMENTS BY BOTH SOVIET AND AMERICAN GOVERNMENTS, NOTHING OF WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE... 
"EVER HAPPENED."
[~introductory text appearing at the beginning of the film]
==Plot==
In late 1984, CIA Analyst Jack Ryan hops a plane from England to visit Admiral Jim Greer at CIA headquarters to show him some photographs obtained by British intelligence of a new larger typhoon-class Soviet submarine called Red October (so named for the Bolshevik revolution of October 1917), commanded by Captain Marko Ramius, a senior Soviet Naval officer known as "the Vilnius Schoolmaster". Greer notices a set of strange doors, too big to be torpedo tubes, on the front and rear of the sub; Ryan replies that neither he nor the British know what they are and wants to show the photos to Skip Tyler, a former sub driver, now naval consultant and Academy teacher. Greer quickly arranges for transportation and tells Ryan that the U.S. satellites spotted Red October in Polijarny Inlet earlier. 
Tyler himself quickly notices the doors and suggests it might be a Caterpillar drive- magnetohydrodynamic propulsion, which Tyler compares to "a jet engine for the water", which goes through the front doors then out the back doors, but is extremely quiet as the drive has no moving parts; he adds that if it did show up on sonar it would sound like "whales humping or some kind of seismic anomaly; anything but a submarine". Tyler then comments that they tried and failed two years ago to get their own version to work. A look of alarm comes to Tyler's face when Ryan tells him that the sub just put to sea that morning, and he tells about how at age 12 he helped his dad built a bomb shelter in their basement because "some fool parked a dozen warheads 90 miles off the coast of Florida" (referring to the Cuban Missile Crisis), and then solemnly warns Ryan that, "This thing (Red October) could park a couple o' hundred warheads off Washington and New York, and no one would know anything about it 'til it was all over."
After Red October departs from Polijarny Inlet, Ramius consults with political officer Putin who is waiting in Ramius' cabin. They open the orders, which state that they are to conduct battle exercises with the submarine V.K. Konovalov, an Alfa-class submarine commanded by Viktor Tupolev, one of Ramius' former students. Putin asks Ramius for permission to post the orders and inform the crew of the misison; Ramius reluctantly allows it, but just as Putin turns around to leave, Ramius grabs his forehead, slams him against the edge of the table and deliberately breaks Putin's neck, rendering him completely paralyzed and unable to breathe, dying in seconds. Ramius throws his drink on the floor to make it look like an accident, destroys the real orders replacing them with phonies, and then calls Dr. Petrov to his cabin. Just before Putin's body is taken away, Ramius calls over a galley assistant named Loginov so that he and Petrov can both witness Ramius removing Putin's ballistic missile key and keeping it himself. Petrov, knowing that Ramius already has the only other key, is unnerved and suggests that he should hold on to it, but Ramius declines, and while addressing the entire crew orders activation of the sub's silent drive. Ramius tells them that their own fleet is unaware of the new sub's full potential. He then reveals his plan to leave the fleet behind and conduct missile drills off the New York coast, then sail to Cuba for R&R. The entire crew is then inspired to begin singing the Soviet national anthem as Red October begins its maiden voyage. 
Patrolling the North Atlantic, the American submarine USS Dallas briefly detects a submarine (Red October) coming out of Polijarny, though the computer doesn't recognize it. They start tracking the new sub, but to their surprise, Red October virtually disappears from their sonar when its caterpillar drive activates. Red October detects Dallas' presence as they turn, but when they notice that Dallas has not turned to follow them, Ramius is convinced that they can't hear them, and allows the crew to continue singing as they head west-southwest. 
At the Red Fleet Political Directorate in Moscow, Admiral Yuri Padorin arrives at his office and finds a letter from Ramius among the morning mail. He settles in with a cigarette as he begins to read the letter, and is about to take a sip of his coffee, but as he continues reading the letter Padorin drops his cup on his desk. 
Greer summons Ryan back to Washington and tells him about the sub disappearing from sonar, and then gives him a memo about how the bulk of the entire Soviet surface fleet has been dispatched into the Atlantic. Ryan is goaded into addressing a security briefing for NSC advisor Jeffrey Pelt and most of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at which he gives a precis of the Red October, its departure that morning, and the threat it poses. Others at the briefing, having been informed that the entire Soviet fleet has been deployed to find and destroy Red October, fear that Ramius may plan an unauthorized strike against the United States. But Ryan hypothesizes that Ramius instead might be trying to defect; he points out that Red October set sail one year to the day after the death of Ramius' wife, whose uncle is Admiral Padorin. Ramius trained most of their officer corps which would put him in a good position to select willing volunteers, and most importantly, he is Lithuanian, not Russian, and has no children or any other ties to leave behind. Pelt gives Ryan three days to confirm his theory, after which he'll order the Navy to sink Red October. 
In the north Atlantic, Konovalov goes to periscope depth. Captain Tupolev receives a dispatch from Red Fleet Command and immediately barks out orders for Konovalov to proceed southwest. Tupolev grumbles that "these orders are seven bloody hours old", and that they've been "sitting on the bottom like an addled schoolboy". When asked where they are going, Tupolev replies "We're going to kill a friend... We're going to kill Ramius". 
Dallas has somehow been able to maintain intermittent contact with the sub since it first disappeared, and Petty Officer Jones, Dallas' sonar technician extraordinaire, has discerned a faint rumble which the sonar computer believes to be "magma displacement", but Jones is certain is man-made. He shows his captain, Commander Bart Mancuso. their navigation map with the intermittent contacts, then connects the contacts with a line that goes straight to a formation called "Thor's Twins", the entrance to Reykjanes Ridge referred to as "Red Route One", a layout of underwater canyons the Soviet subs navigate through using hyper-accurate surveys; Jones surmises that the "magma displacement" is actually a new Soviet sub bound for the Iceland coast. Mancuso is sold, and plots an intercept course to the other end of Red Route One.
Red October's officers (sans Dr. Petrov) gather In their wardroom, and Senior Lt. Slavin confronts Ramius about what actually happened to Putin; when it comes out that he was murdered, the other officers panic fearing a mutiny by the crew, and believe that there will be hell to pay once they return home. But Ramius announces that "there will be no going back", and tells them about his letter to Padorin in which he revealed his intention to defect to the United States. Ramius then orders the officers back to their posts, after which Captain Second Rank Borodin, Ramius' second-in-command, says that Ramius should not have informed Moscow. But Ramius is more worried about the Americans, stating that if they can get in contact with "some buckaroo", his plan will work.
After a rough ride over the Atlantic, Ryan makes it aboard the USS Enterprise, where he tries to convince Captain Charles Davenport and Admiral Joshua Painter of Ramius' intentions, and as expected, they are a hard sell. Later, Davenport shows Ryan the nautical charts, which show both fleets, American and Soviet, in close proximity, with the American fleet observing the Soviets on their rescue mission to find Red October. Ryan notices that the Soviet rescue units comprise abundant firepower, and then Davenport adds that the Soviets have been excessively using their sonar, which Ryan deduces they're doing not to find Red October but to drive him toward the rest of the fleet. While observing the Soviets, one of Enterprise's F-14's becomes disabled when it bumps into a Soviet Bear Foxtrot, and is being directed back to Enterprise but crashes at the edge of her deck. Ryan is able to arrange a hazardous mid-ocean rendezvous via a modified Enterprise helicopter to get aboard the Dallas, where he attempts to persuade Mancuso to try and contact Ramius and find out his true intentions.
While navigating through the canyons, Red October's caterpillar drive suddenly fails. Sabotage is suspected, and Ramius orders the main engines restarted. No longer silent, Red October is attacked by Soviet air forces who drop a torpedo. Red October begins risky maneuvers and narrowly avoids the torpedo, but members of the crew become frightened, asking why they are being attacked by their own people. The ship's engineer, Senior Lieutenant Melekhin, finds out why the caterpillar drive failed: someone tore out the buffer circuit causing an overload. Ramius deduces that the saboteur is a member of the crew.
Soviet Ambassador Andrei Lysenko, who earlier claimed that Red October was feared down and missing at sea, now nervously tells Pelt that Ramius is threatening an independent missile strike on the U.S. and has been ordered to ask the president to dispatch American naval forces to help to sink it. An order to do this is communicated to the U.S. Fleet, including the Dallas. Having reacquired contact with Red October near Newfoundland's Grand Banks, Mancuso is about to implement the orders, but Ryan convinces him at the last second to make contact and offer to assist Ramius in his defection, acting on a hunch that Ramius always performed a Soviet sub tactic known as a "Crazy Ivan" at the bottom of every hour. Through Mancuso, Ryan sends a Morse code message via periscope to inform Ramius that he will be attacked if he approaches the US coast, and then asks if his intentions are, in fact, to defect, and if so offer any assistance they might require. Stunned that the Americans correctly guessed his plan, Ramius accepts their cooperation, and Ryan instructs Ramius to maneuver Red October south toward the Laurentian Abyssal. 
Nearly 20 hours later, Ramius, with help from Borodin and Melekhin, stages a phony nuclear reactor emergency complete with ventilation system failure. With Dr. Petrov's prompting, Ramius orders the ship to surface, and the crew to break out rescue rafts and abandon ship. At the surface, a U.S. naval frigate, the USS Reuben James, shows up and demands that Red October halt and surrender. Seeing a chance for his crew to be rescued, Ramius tells Dr. Petrov to go with the crew and that he and the other officers will scuttle the sub rather than let it be captured by the Americans. After Red October submerges, Reuben James sends one of its choppers to drop a torpedo which is remotely detonated less than 300 yards from Red October's position; it is shown that Admiral Greer (with Skip Tyler at his side) detonated the torpedo, and then showing his CIA credentials, tells Reuben James' commander, "that torpedo did not self-destruct; you heard it hit the hull, and I... was never here".
Ryan, Mancuso, and Jones board Red October via DSRV (Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle). After an awkward introduction, Ramius presents the submarine to Mancuso and requests asylum in the United States for himself and his officers. Just as the two commanders introduce themselves to each other, all hell breaks loose when they hear another torpedo coarsing through the water. One of Red October's officers thinks the Americans are shooting at them again, but Jones can tell the torpedo is Russian and passes Red October before it goes active. Konovalov, which had followed Red October across the Atlantic, fires another torpedo, but to everyone else's disbelief, Ramius orders the sub to steer directly into the torpedo's path; the torpedo harmlessly breaks up on impact, and Mancuso figures out that Ramius closed the distance between the sub and the torpedo before it could arm itself, but Ramius knows that Tupolev is not one to repeat a mistake and is removing the safeties on his torpedoes. As the two Soviet subs continue to maneuver, an undercover GRU agent opens fire disabling the sub's ordinance control and fatally wounding Borodin before retreating into the missile bay. Knowing that the saboteur can detonate a missile and incinerate the ship, Ramius and Ryan pursue him into the bay where he again opens fire wounding Ramius in the shoulder, but Ryan catches up with the saboteur (who turns out to be Loginov, the galley assistant) and kills him.
With Mancuso at the helm, Red October takes evasive maneuvers. Konovalov fires yet another torpedo, this one fully armed, but Dallas temporarily diverts it using counter measures. Moments later, searching for another target, the torpedo again locks on Red October, and Mancuso orders the sub to maneuver toward Konovalov, narrowly avoiding collision as the torpedo abruptly changes course and destroys Konovalov killing everyone on board. Red October's crew, now on the deck of Reuben James, sees the explosion. Unaware of Konovalov's presence, they assume that Red October was destroyed and go into mourning for their captain's "death". 
Back in Washington, Pelt discusses the report of Red October's final position with Lysenko, adding that with the depth of the water and the wreckage so widely spread out nothing can be recovered any time soon. Lysenko appreciates Pelt's regret over Red October's tragic end and then reluctantly brings up a new issue: one of their Alfa submarines (Konovalov) was last reported near the Grand Banks but has not checked in for some time; Pelt responds in (mock) exasperation, "Andrei... you've lost another submarine??" 
The subterfuge finally complete, Ryan and Ramius sail Red October to the Penobscot River in Maine, where Ramius explains another reason for his defection: Red October was built to "settle everything in one moment" as some Soviets believe they should attack the U.S. first. Ryan suggests that there will be hell to pay in Moscow, but Ramius believes that some good may come of it. Ramius then quotes a saying by Christopher Columbus, to which Ryan replies, "Welcome to the New World, sir." 
==Cast==
*Sean Connery as Captain First Rank Marko Ramius, commander of the Red October
*Alec Baldwin as Dr. Jack Ryan, a CIA analyst who deduces Ramius' intention to defect
* Red October officers & crew
** Sam Neill as Captain Second Rank Vasily Borodin, second-in-command
** Peter Firth as Senior Lieutenant Ivan Putin, political officer/commissar (Zampolit)
** Tim Curry as Captain Lieutenant (Doctor) Yevgeni Petrov, medical officer
** Ronald Guttman as Senior Lieutenant Melekhin, chief engineer 
** Tomas Arana as Cook's Assistant Loginov, an undercover GRU (Soviet military intelligence) agent
** Boris Krutonog as Senior Lieutenant Victor Slavin
* Dallas officers & crew
** Scott Glenn as Commander Bart Mancuso
** Anthony Peck as Lt. Cmdr. "Tommy" Thompson, second-in-command
** Courtney B. Vance as Petty Officer (2nd Class) Ronald "Jonesy" Jones, Dallas sonar technician who first detects Red October's caterpillar drive
** Larry Ferguson as Master Chief Petty Officer Watson (aka Chief of the Boat, or "COB")
** Ned Vaughn as Seaman Beaumont, sonar trainee
*James Earl Jones as Vice Admiral James Greer, CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence, and Ryan's former commander
*Fred Dalton Thompson as Rear Admiral (Lower Half) Joshua Painter
*Daniel Davis as Captain Charles Davenport, commander of the USS Enterprise
*Stellan Skarsgård as Captain Second Rank Viktor Tupolev, commander of the Alfa-class sub V.K. Konovalov and former protégé of Ramius
*Jeffrey Jones as Skip Tyler, a former sub driver who first determines that the Red October is equipped with a caterpillar drive
*Joss Ackland as Andrei Lysenko, Soviet ambassador to the U.S.
*Richard Jordan as Jeffrey Pelt, the National Security Advisor to the President
==Trivia==
*In the scene where Putin is in Ramius' cabin, he is perusing a bible that once belonged to Ramius' wife; Among the scriptures Putin reads aloud (the first few words in Russian) are:
**"Behold, I am coming as a thief. Blessed is the one who remains awake and clothed, so that he will not go naked and let his shame be exposed. And they assembled the kings in the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon. And the seventh angel poured forth his bowl into the air, and a loud voice cried out from heaven saying, “It is done!” (Revelations 16:15-17)
**Putin then notices an aside written in the book's margin: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds", which Ramius explains is "an ancient Hindu text, quoted by an American; he invented the Atomic Bomb, and was later accused of being a communist." The words reference a phrase from the Shrimad Bhagavad Gita famously quoted by J. Robert Oppenheimer who, after the creation of the bomb said, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." It was confirmed that while Oppenheimer did support communist causes, he never engaged in Soviet espionage, though the Soviets futilely tried numerous times to recruit him.
**Right after breaking his neck on the edge of the table, Ramius whispers to the dying Putin quoting, albeit out of context, part of another scripture in which Jesus addresses his disciples right before his ascension: "Where I am going, you cannot follow." (John 13:36); the rest of the verse states that "you cannot follow now, but you will follow later." 
* According to Seaman Jones, a "Crazy Ivan" is a Soviet maneuver (referred to by Borodin as "a routine clearing of the baffles") in which a submarine makes a sudden hard turn to check whether another vessel is behind them. When that happens, the sub following them can only go silent, shut everything down and "make like a hole in the water". But Jonesy also points out that Dallas' counter-maneuver can be tricky and dangerous as "a boat this big doesn't exactly stop on a dime", and that if they're drifting too close they could collide.
* In Red October's missile bay, Ryan, gun at the ready, confronts the saboteur (Loginov). After noticing he is "A goddamn cook!", Ryan says to him, "Ostav' eto v pokoye!", which in Russian means, "Leave it in peace" or "Leave it alone"; in essence, Ryan ordered Loginov to "Stop what you're doing", but after several silent and very tense moments, Ryan shoots and kills him before he can detonate one of the missiles and destroy Red October.
* In the final scene, Red October is safely hidden in what is claimed to be the "Penobscot River north of Searsport, Maine". The mouth of the Penobscot River is actually several miles northeast of Searsport. Ryan tells Ramius that he grew up in that area, and then points to a nearby island, possibly Verona Island, where his grandfather taught him to fish.
**In the same scene, Ramius quotes to Ryan a line he attributes to Christopher Columbus: "...and the sea will grant each man new hope; his sleep brings dreams of home." This line was actually written by film screenwriter Larry Ferguson (who also played Chief Watson on the Dallas); this is confirmed in the audio commentary of the Hunt for Red October DVD by director John McTiernan and by Ferguson. It is also confirmed by Quotes.com.
* Alec Baldwin is the first of five actors to portray Jack Ryan in any visual medium; he was succeeded in film by Harrison Ford (Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger), Ben Affleck (The Sum of All Fears) and Chris Pine (Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit). and by John Krasinski in the 2018 Amazon Prime TV series named for the character.
Category:Paramount Pictures films
Category:Films
Category:Political films
Category:Action
Category:Thriller
Category:Films starring Sean Connery
Category:Films starring Alec Baldwin
Category:Films starring James Earl Jones
Category:Films starring Sam Neill
Category:Films starring Tim Curry
Category:Blockbusters
Category:Films produced by Mace Neufeld
Category:Films based on works by Tom Clancy
Category:Ryanverse films
Category:2:35:1 Aspect Ratio Films
Category:Films on VHS
Category:Films on Laserdiscs
Category:THX
Category:Submarine films
Category:Films on DVD
Category:2:39:1 Aspect Ratio Films