Post by ronnierocketago on Nov 29, 2009 6:15:10 GMT
PATRIOT GAMES (1992) - **1/2
Phillip Noyce's PATRIOT GAMES has many similarities with Ridley Scott's BLACK RAIN, which I reviewed a long time ago. Shot by a more than competent capable British filmmaker, It's a nice looking, technically well-crafted (then) topical actioneer with a great cast good money can buy. We even get a memorable moment or two. Too bad it's ultimately all for naught because PATRIOT doesn't have compelling characters and you really don't care what happens to them. Always fatal.
You have CIA agent Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford) on vacation in London with his family, when out of good asskicking samaritanism, he saves some Royal targets from IRA terrorists led by Sean Bean. You younger kids might not remember The Troubles up in Northern Ireland, which sorta wrecked Belfast's tourist industry for a few decades. Then the Good Friday Agreement brought peace. Well mostly. Good news for diplomacy, bad news for Hollywood. One less set of dependable foreign disposable movie baddies.
Anyway, one of the hoods nailed by Ford is Bean's kid brother. Opps. I do dig the rather clever touch by Noyce and source novel author Tom Clancy where in Bean's quest for revenge, this personal war becomes a dramatic microcosm for that civil war. Bean's character is Irish, and Ford's is Irish-American. In fact, Ford's New England beachside home could easily have been mistaken for a snapshot taken from the Emerald Isle. Bean strikes back at Ford's family, and Ford retaliates by using Langley at his disposal. Also remember how symbolically powerful back in the day all this was about bringing that conflict "home" to American soil in the years before Oklahoma City, the World Trade Center bombing, and 9/11. Kinda has lost its punch.
Honestly when Bean gets freed out of police custody by his renegade IRA faction led by Patrick Bergen, he's a safe man. Nobody on either side of the Ocean know where he is. He's practically disapeared. That whole crew stowaway on a cargo ship and head off to some safe isolated Third World location to fully train militarily. From which they could launch a more vicious insurgent campaign against the British government and the other "pacifist" IRA gangs. But he's fully concentrated on Ford now, almost seemingly indifferent to his original Republican militant cause. To emphasize this obsession, we get the time honored movie cliche where the villain tapes a news artcle about Ford's heroics to the wall of his jail cell, staring daggers through Ford's mug.
Both men inevitably become fueled by hatred, desperation to in their victims minds avenge against the one who wronged him. This can only end one way. The movie's best scene might be when Ford discovers Bean's terrorist cell hiding in a Libyan desert camp and the CIA bigwigs orchestrate the British S.A.S. to go total murder death kill. Watching from a satellite drone's infrared vision, we see the covert commando figures exterminate the camp's inhabitants as Ford watches quietly stoic with unapologetic dedication. Good raw shit.
Since this is an actioneer, where we have an undisputed good guy and clear-cut adversary, the possible poignant parallel to be emulated about the uselessness of that Trouble's never-ending cycle of vengeance by both sides is tampered down to a mute. If Bean had just been patiented, wait a few years, then he could have rubbed out Ford when he's relaxed and at ease. Let him squirm. By targeting the family, Bean forces Ford to escalate matters, which utlimately dooms his whole platoon. He lets his anger get the better of him in the tradition of MOBY DICK and WRATH OF KAHN. In fact with the orgiinal filmed poetic ending, Bean drowns in the sea while fighting* Ford, much like Ahab. More fitting than the test audience-friendly reshoot where Bean's boat simply explodes. Yawn.
You know in reading my review so far, I just realized that GAMES is one of those pictures I should quite love considering the ingredients. So why am I incredibly indifferent? Maybe first off, it's Harrison Ford. Mind you he's as good as he usually can be, but like his AIR FORCE ONE I reviewed back in the summer, he's just wrong here.
There was a time when I used to be a Clancy fan. Before his later writings got hijacked by his conservative ideological agenda, his early books were engaging thoughtful thrillers. A renegade Soviet sub, a dirty war in Colombia, the Super Bowl getting nuked, a possible World War 3 without a nuclear exchange, and so forth. The chief appeal of the Jack Ryan character for many readers was that he's a book worm, an analyst who's uncomfortable about having to physically save the day. Playing the same character in THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER picture, Alec Baldwin is appropriate because nobody has or ever will see that actor as an action figure. Ford on the other hand, he's Indiana Jones and Han Solo. Kicking ass is second nature.
But that's a minor qualm and not as annoying about it as AIR FORCE ONE. So again I ask, what's my beef with GAMES?
I seem to remember PATRIOT GAMES the novel having the same problem as the movie, which is rather interesting. For once Hollywood was rather quite faithful to a fault. Their core fundamental story problem is this. In American action cinema and literary tradition, we've had a plenty story about a protagonist, usually armed to the teeth in guns and ammunition, going out for bloody revenge. In fact it was rare in the Reagan Decade to have an action film not built around that plot device. Probably one of the reasons why DIE HARD at the time was so refreshing. So anyway, when said guy goes all DEATH WISH, we the audience tend to root for him, or manipulated to at least. The sons of bitches must pay, eye for an eye, the law won't do anything, all that.
Yet when the situation is reversed, where it's the villain out for blood, we're supposed to hope the hero escapes. The bad guy isn't righteous here. But why? And no the excuse that the protagonist isn't as "evil" as the baddie just doesn't cut it. Such plotting has always troubled me for some reason. If Rambo's brother got blown away, we gotta go to war. If its Kahn's wife, well fuck him. We Americans are so dedicated in spirit and commitment to the art of revenge, for a story or movie to tell us to decry something against our nature...Either vengeance is thematically acceptable, or its not. Can't have it both ways people.
Also, Mr. Noyce why open the movie with the Ford family playing Monopoly? Yeah I know why. It's a board game. In a picture titled PATRIOT GAMES. Gee, how witty and subtle! Not. But why not instead Yahtzee or Uno or Sorry or even Clue? Besides Monopoly blows.
*=Fun fact: That nasty cut above Bean's left eye in the finale was real. Apparently Ford accidentally nicked him when he swung the anchor too close. Awesome scar with an awesome story.