The Hunt for Red October (John McTiernan, 1990)

Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, and Scott Glenn in The Hunt for Red October

Jack Ryan: Alec Baldwin
Marko Ramius: Sean Connery
Bart Mancuso: Scott Glenn
Capt. Borodin: Sam Neill
Admiral Greer: James Earl Jones
Andrei Lysenko: Joss Ackland
Jeffrey Pelt: Richard Jordan
Ivan Putin: Peter Firth
Dr. Petrov: Tim Curry
Seaman Jones: Courtney B. Vance
Capt. Tupolev: Stellan Skarsgård
Skip Tyler: Jeffrey Jones

Director: John McTiernan
Screenplay: Larry Ferguson, Donald E. Stewart
Based on a novel by Tom Clancy
Cinematography: Jan de Bont
Production design: Terence Marsh
Film editing: Dennis Virkler, John Wright
Music: Basil Poledouris

What to make of the fact that the KGB man assigned to be "political officer" on the Red October (and swiftly offed by the defecting captain) is named Putin? Coincidence, of course, but it's one of the things that make John McTiernan's film of Tom Clancy's blockbuster novel The Hunt for Red October still relevant. The film turns on the perpetual dilemma summed up in the oxymoronic Russian proverb that Ronald Reagan turned into a foreign policy, "Trust, but verify." This first Jack Ryan movie is a bit overplotted and occasionally slow to generate the tension a thriller needs, but it has weathered the fall of the Soviet Union better than a lot of stories about the Cold War, and having a character named Putin (though he's Ivan, not Vladimir) with a background similar to the current Russian strongman's does tickle the imagination a bit. The best thing about the film itself is its casting. Even though this was Alec Baldwin's only outing as Jack Ryan (he was replaced by a bigger box-office draw, Harrison Ford, in the next two Tom Clancy movies, Philip Noyce's 1992 Patriot Games and 1994 Clear and Present Danger, and the role has been played by Ben Affleck, Chris Pine, and John Krasinski), Baldwin gets the souped-up everyman quality of the role right. But he's overshadowed -- as who isn't? -- by Sean Connery, as well as by those two exemplars of Actors Who Make Every Movie They're in a Little Better: Sam Neill and Scott Glenn. The fantasy of Neill's Capt. Borodin is one of the screenplay's high points: "I will live in Montana and I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck and maybe even a recreational vehicle." It makes the character's dying words, "I would like to have seen Montana," an unexpectedly poignant moment for an action thriller. Glenn similarly finds the humanity within a character who could be just a stereotype, the tough-talking cowboy with an empathetic streak that keeps him from shooting first and asking questions later.

Alien 3 (David Fincher, 1992)

Charles Dance and Sigourney Weaver in Alien 3

Ripley: Sigourney Weaver
Dillon: Charles S. Dutton
Clemens: Charles Dance
Andrews: Brian Glover
Golic: Paul McGann
Aaron: Ralph Brown
Morse: Danny Webb
Bishop/Bishop II: Lance Henriksen
Junior: Hoyt McCallany
David: Pete Postlethwaite

Director: David Fincher
Screenplay: Vincent Ward, David Giler, Walter Hill, Larry Ferguson
Cinematography: Alex Thomson
Production design: Norman Reynolds
Film editing: Terry Rawlings
Music: Elliot Goldenthal

Alien 3 may be the sourest sequel ever made, completely negating in its opening scenes what made Aliens (James Cameron, 1986) so exciting: Ripley's heroic efforts to save the lives of Newt and Hicks (as well as retrieve what remained of Bishop). When Alien 3 begins, Newt and Hicks have died, making Ripley's efforts meaningless. And as if to rub salt in her wounds, she is forced to watch an autopsy of the little girl, just to make sure the alien isn't incubating in her. Not that what follows is much more enjoyable. As I said in my comments on Aliens, what made that film and its predecessor, Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979), so entertaining was the interplay among its well-drawn characters. But there are hardly any characters besides Ripley in Alien 3. Charles S. Dutton and Charles Dance are fine actors, but Dance feels miscast as the brief potential romantic interest for Ripley, and Dutton is given little to do but deliver a homily at the cremation of Newt and Hicks and afterward to run and shout a lot as everyone fights the alien. Dutton's character, Dillon, is supposed to be the spiritual leader of a group of YY-chromosome inmates on the prison planet Ripley's escape pod crashes onto. The religious subplot feels superfluous -- it's apparently left over from an earlier version of the screenplay in which the prison was instead a monastery -- since the prisoners don't seem particularly devout; they mostly growl and leer at Ripley, the only woman on the planet, and a group of them try to rape her. This was the debut feature for David Fincher, who has since proved himself to be one of the more skilled and distinctive American directors, but making it was not a pleasant experience for him -- there were too many misfired attempts to get a workable screenplay, and the director who preceded him, Vincent Ward, was fired. It's mostly held together by Sigourney Weaver's performance and a few exciting action scenes -- though even these are marred by some confusing editing, especially the extended chase sequence through the corridors of the prison at the end. And Ripley's sacrifice -- which should have put an end to the series but didn't -- only adds to the general depression that permeates the movie.