Clear And Present Danger

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General		Extras
Category	Action Thriller	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Released	1994
Running Time	135:26 Minutes
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (72:06)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Selection then Movie
Region	4	Director	Phillip Noyce
Studio Distributor	Paramount	Starring	Harrison Ford Willem Dafoe Anne Archer Joaquim de Almeida Henry Czerny Harris Yulin Donald Moffat James Earl Jones
Case	Transparent Amaray
RPI	$39.95	Music	James Horner

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384Kb/s) Italian (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384Kb/s) Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes	Smoking	No
Subtitles	Italian English English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired Spanish Portuguese Greek	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Clear And Present Danger begins with a Coast Guard ship boarding a luxury power yacht that happens to be owned by a friend of the President and his family. The Coast Guard get the video camera and discover to their horror that this particular man and his family have been murdered, then thrown overboard, quite probably by the same men whom they've captured piloting the vessel. President Bennett (Donald Moffat) is outraged, while Jack Ryan (Harrison Ford) and Admiral James Greer (James Earl Jones) are saddled with the unfortunate duty of informing him that the suspected murderers are drug traffickers with ties to the Cali Cartel. Bennett does a pretty good job of keeping his anger under wraps until, during a conversation with James Cutter (Harris Yulin), one of his advisers, about the lack of ability on the part of the South American forces to fight the Cartels, he states that the Cartels are to be considered a clear and present danger to the United States, and that covert operations against the Cali Cartel should begin immediately.

    Meanwhile, the current head of the Cali Cartel, Ernesto Escobeda (Miguel Sandoval), is visited by one of his most valued allies, Colonel Felix Cortez, alias Roberto Alonzo Landa (Joaquim de Almeida), who informs him that the family he had killed were friends of the American President. From there, we cut to another day at the Ryan household, where Sally (Thora Birch), John junior (Alexander Lester), and Cathy (Anne Archer) are apparently none the worse for their experiences in the previous film. As Jack Ryan is about to leave for another day at his job, he receives a phone call and goes to visit Admiral Greer, who has just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. James Greer is unable to do his job in the CIA, so he hands Jack the enviable task of heading a part of the Agency and working as an adviser to the President, although he cautions Jack to keep an eye on his back at all times. So, with the new title of Deputy Director Of Intelligence, Jack goes to work with such delightful characters as Robert Ritter (Henry Czerny), and tries to keep himself out of trouble. Meanwhile, Cutter and Ritter begin Operation Reciprocity and recruit a mercenary by the name of John Clark (Willem Dafoe) to lead a dozen paramilitary agents against the Cartel.

    There's not much else I can say about the plot without ruining it, but the consensus among IMDB users and many armchair critics alike is that this is the least of the three Jack Ryan stories that have so far been adapted to the big screen. However, if you're after a thinking man's kind of action film, then Clear And Present Danger should fit the bill, especially now that it can be seen in its proper aspect ratio.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, and it is 16x9 Enhanced. Once again, this is a film that has to be seen in its proper aspect ratio to be fully appreciated, and a 16x9 Enhanced transfer is definitely what this piece of action theatre deserves. The transfer is very sharp, at least where the in-focus details are concerned, but backgrounds have a marked tendency to dissolve that is probably the fault of the cinematography. The shadow detail is very good, and there is no low-level noise to worry about.

    The colour saturation of this transfer is often quite muted during the sequences that are set in the United States, especially during the moments in the hospital, while sequences set in South America have a richer palette to them. This is definitely because of the locations involved, and the original photography, as well as this transfer, captures them without missing a beat.

    MPEG artefacts were not a problem in this transfer, which has quite a lot of room to breathe. Film-to-video artefacts were much less of a problem in this film than was the case in Patriot Games, too, and I noticed maybe two dozen instances of aliasing in the entire film, none of which were particularly distracting. Film artefacts were still a small problem, however, being borderline acceptable for a film of this age.

    This disc is presented in the RSDL format, with the layer change taking place during Chapter 14 at 72:06. Aside from being noticeable, this layer change was not disruptive at all to the flow of the film.

Audio

    There are a total of three soundtracks on this DVD, all of which are in Dolby Digital 5.1 with a bitrate of 384 kilobits per second: the first soundtrack is the original English dialogue, with dubs in Italian and Spanish for good measure. I listened primarily to the default English soundtrack, although I also had a listen to some of Joaquim de Almeida's lines in Spanish for a bit of fun. While I'm thinking of it, it should be noted that some of the dialogue early in this film is in Spanish, but it is accompanied by a subtitle stream that defaults to on, which is handy if your Spanish speaking is a little underdeveloped like mine.

    The dialogue is clear and easy to understand most of the time, with the only notable exception being one line from Raymond Cruz in a sequence where one of his character's fallen comrades is being buried. This line was equally hard to understand on all of the other formats I've seen this movie on, and its easy to get the gist of what is being said from what can be heard, anyway. There were no discernible problems with audio sync.

    The music in this film is credited to James Horner, and it is pretty much the same as that which accompanied Patriot Games. It is basically loud, bombastic, and very much overstated, but not in the same good way that John Williams manages in certain other films that star Harrison Ford. The James Horner book of film scoring seems to have three basic rules: make it loud, make it so upbeat it resembles saccharine after a while, and let no dramatic moment go without it. There is a reason why this composer is one of my least favourites.

    The surround channels were once again aggressively utilized to support most every sequence in the film, whether it be a quiet conversation in the White House, or an intense battle sequence in South America. Fundamentally, the surrounds are almost always doing something in this soundtrack, and they draw the viewer into the film in such a way that only a good audio transfer can. My favourite example of surround usage in this soundtrack is during the bombing sequence at 70:02, when a fighter jet whizzes by both visually and aurally. The assassination attempt upon the squad of delegates Jack Ryan is with at 55:43 is also supported by some immersive activity from the surround channels, and as I said earlier, the dialogue sequences are no slouch either. The subwoofer was used to equally great effect during these and other sequences, adding a nice bottom end to such things as passing helicopters, which it did without calling undue attention to itself.

Menu

Theatrical Trailer

• 16x9 Enhancement

    The video transfer is very good, although not quite great.

    The audio transfer is demonstration material, no two ways about that.

    The extras are minimal.
 
 

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Dean McIntosh (my bio... read it)
June 10, 2001