The Hunt for Red October
| Year: | 1990 |
| Director: | John McTiernan |
| Cast: | Alec Baldwin, Sean Connery, Sam Neill, Scott Glenn, James Earl Jones, Joss Ackland, Tim Curry, Jeffrey Jones |
The first of the big budget thrillers from the pen of Tom Clancy to hit the screen, and the introduction to the world of the endless morphing character of Jack Ryan.
Red October is a new top secret Russian nuclear sub being tracked by the Americans, and when it goes off course, everyone is left guessing about the intentions of its captain.
CIA analyst Ryan is trying to predict what the possibly unhinged navyman will do with a deadly weapon on the loose in the ocean and stay one step ahead of the game.
What ends up a simple defection story is kept pretty tightly tense by some good scripting and direction by one of Hollywood's most under-recognised directing talents.
It also features a very effective device for getting around the language barrier - all the Russians speak Russian early on, until the camera zooms right in to the lips of a man speaking until his language turns into English - we're knowingly taken beyond the barrier inside the Russian language.
Red October is a new top secret Russian nuclear sub being tracked by the Americans, and when it goes off course, everyone is left guessing about the intentions of its captain.
CIA analyst Ryan is trying to predict what the possibly unhinged navyman will do with a deadly weapon on the loose in the ocean and stay one step ahead of the game.
What ends up a simple defection story is kept pretty tightly tense by some good scripting and direction by one of Hollywood's most under-recognised directing talents.
It also features a very effective device for getting around the language barrier - all the Russians speak Russian early on, until the camera zooms right in to the lips of a man speaking until his language turns into English - we're knowingly taken beyond the barrier inside the Russian language.