Patriot Games
      
Director: Phillip Noyce
Year: 1992
Rating: 5.5
One of my cinematic peeves is when the criminal or the terrorist who loses one of their gang goes after the family of whoever killed them. This has become such a tiresome moth-eaten cliché in loads of films. I just don't think it ever happens in real life but in the movies if there is a family, you know they will come after them. And get killed doing so. Some clichés just have to be buried with a tombstone declaring their time is up. This was true even back in 1992 when this film was made and it consumes what otherwise is a pretty decent film. The bad guys are Irish terrorists - a break-away group from the I.R.A. - because they didn't want to insult them, I am sure. Irish terrorists had a mission - to force the British to leave - and losses were expected. You don't go after the family of every person who killed one of them. A stupid conceit for lazy scriptwriters.


 
This is the second in the Jack Ryan film series. The first was The Hunt for Red October (1990) with Alec Baldwin as Ryan. They change gears here and hand the role over to Harrison Ford. He and his wife (Anne Archer) and cute young daughter (Thora Birch who nine years later was in Ghost World) are in London when Ryan is on hand when terrorists try and kidnap a member of the royal family (James Fox). He of course breaks it up, saves the Lord and kills one of the gang.

 

The dead terrorist is the brother of one of the other terrorists (Sean Bean) who gets captured, sentenced to jail and breaks out because the cops transporting him don't carry guns. So polite of the British. He makes a beeline to America to kill Ryan and his family. Oh, please. It gets suspenseful at times - in particular the ending but still Mr. Terrorist, shouldn't you be off doing terrorist things? A fine cast - besides those mentioned - Samuel Jackson, James Earl Jones in his recurring role as Admiral Greer, Richard Harris as a member of the IRA and Hugh Fraser (Hastings in many of the Poirot TV series). It was directed by Phillip Noyce who also was to direct the next Jack Ryan film, Clear and Present Danger.  Hopefully, we won't be seeing Ryan's family (We did but only briefly).