Two questions attach themselves to “Sum of all Fears:” Is America ready for its first post-Sept 11 nuclear terrorism-centered film, and can doll face Ben Affleck lead us through it? The answer is not a booming “You betcha!” but more of a shoulder-shrugging “Well, kinda.”
In the latest Tom Clancy thriller, which transcends all time constraints set up by its predecessors “Patriot Games” and “Clear and Present Danger,” young Jack Ryan (Affleck, “Changing Lanes”) is working entry level at the CIA. Tensions between Russia and the United States begin to develop due to nuclear bombings, and Ryan’s knowledge of the new Russian president is needed to help explain and correct the situation.
It seems, in an eerily realistic set-up, that the Russian prez has an itchy trigger finger with America as his next target. Affleck’s Ryan defends the Russian leader with the fervor you would expect from a jilted P. Diddy fan that swears up and down he is not the one sampling Dionne Warwick’s “Say A Little Prayer.” “He just wouldn’t do that,” cries Affleck again and again, “It must be somebody else.”
But because he is Ben Affleck and because it is Tom Clancy, it indeed is someone else. “Sum of All Fears” forgoes the digital clock count-down, rushing to cut the green wire and hokey suspense in favor of smart, mental paranoia. The psychological butting of heads between Russia and the United States is frighteningly real and intelligently executed.
The keystone event in the film is the bombing of the Super Bowl in Baltimore, which has, strangely, both a cringing and captivating effect. The scenes of whisking the president out of the arena, the emergency triage centers, and the Press Core dinner in which all the major political figures’ cell phones ring at the same time, are down right chilling.
“Fears” writers were sharp enough to include realistic incidences in which the president and cabinet argue and come apart at the seams and world leaders take blame for unexplained bombings by saying disquieting lines like, “In this day and age, it is better to look guilty than incompetent.”
Then there’s that matter of the leading man. I, like the un-teenage-girl film going world, was skeptical of Affleck’s casting. Was he going to wink nuclear terrorists to death? Blind the Nazis with his pearly white smile? Although not a career-making performance, Affleck gets the job done and is not too bad doing it. He’s not too great, lacking the strong, stoic nature of Ford’s Jack Ryan and the brooding, calculating exterior of Baldwin’s. But he handles the film’s script and pace with some sense confidence and adds a little charm.
The same film released at the same time last summer would have been met with entertaining satisfaction and most likely forgotten before pulling out of the parking lot. Although “Sum of All Fears” isn’t particularly memorable, the current situation makes it more effective, or at least tremendously more intense.
It’s still a long way from documentary, but these days, it seems far less fictional than it would have last June. The film is not offensive, but your enjoyment of it rests heavily on how prepared you are to see the usual Hollywood treatment of terrorism (again, it is Ben Affleck saving the world here) in a less-than-usual world.
GRADE: B
