THE SUM OF ALL FEARS (FILM)

'''The Sum of All Fears''' is a 2002 American film directed by Phil Alden Robinson, and based on the book of the same name by Tom Clancy. It stars Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman and was released in the United States on May 31, 2002.

Contents

Plot summary

Main cast

Deviations from the book

Sources

External links

Plot summary

During the Yom Kippur War in 1973, an Israeli A-4 jet carrying a nuclear bomb is shot down over the desert in the Middle East. In 2002, the bomb is found and sold to an arms dealer named Olson (Colm Feore), he sells it to an Austrian neo-nazi named Richard Dressler (Alan Bates) for 50 million dollars on the black market.
Meanwhile, the United States becomes concerned when Alexander Nemerov (Ciaran Hinds) becomes the new president of the Russian Federation. Nemerov is seen as a hard-liner with regards to his control over the Russian military. Director of Central Intelligence William Cabot (Morgan Freeman) seeks the opinion of young CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Ben Affleck), who has done extensive research on Nemerov's life and career. While on a routine inspection of Russia's nuclear weapons facilities, Cabot and Ryan are invited to the Kremlin to meet with Nemerov personally. Tension arises when Nemerov likens the United States' involvement in Russian-Chechen affairs to "sleeping with another man's wife", with Russia playing the part of the betrayed and vengeful husband.
During the inspection, Ryan notices that three senior Russian nuclear technicians are not present at the facility. Nemerov's aide Anatoli Grushkov (Michael Byrne) attempts to assuage Ryan's concerns by telling him that the three scientists are out sick, on vacation, and recently deceased (respectively). Cabot's covert informant in Moscow, known by his codename 'Spinnaker', tells Cabot that Grushkov's explanations are false, and that the whereabouts of the three scientists are truly unknown. Upon arrival in Washington, Cabot sends John Clark (Liev Schreiber) to track down those missing scientists. Clark discovers the three scientists in Ukraine constructing Dressler's bomb.
When President Nemerov takes responsibility for an unauthorized gas-warfare attack on the capital of Chechnya, Grozny, it concerns American President J. Robert Fowler and his administration, in response he sends peacekeeping troops to Chechnya. The nuclear bomb arrives in a crate in Baltimore, Maryland, and is placed at an American football stadium secreted in a cigarette vending machine. In a recording, Dressler reveals his intentions in placing the bomb in Baltimore: frustrated and angered with the American and Russian paternalism over smaller European nations, Dressler has resolved to destroy both nations, much as Adolf Hitler desired to. Dressler notes that Hitler was "not crazy", but "stupid" in that he tried to fight the Soviet Union and the United States simultaneously. Rather, one must get "America and Russia to fight each other... and destroy each other." By detonating a Russian-made nuclear weapon on American soil, Dressler hopes to aggravate an already tense relationship between the two superpowers to the point of full-blown nuclear war.
Ryan attempts to inform Cabot that the bomb is in Baltimore, but it turns out that President Fowler and Cabot are attending a football game in the stadium where the bomb is planted. The President manages to escape the stadium, but only moments before the bomb detonates, destroying a significant part of the city. After the explosion, President Fowler is rescued by United States Marines, and taken airborne on a Boeing E-4B Advanced Airborne Command Post with his cabinet. Immediately, they fear that the bomb was Russian. Ryan and his girlfriend Dr. Catherine Muller (Bridget Moynahan) survive the blast, but Cabot dies later at a hospital.
After learning about the explosion, Dressler calls his neo-fascist friend who is a general in the Russian Air Force. In an attempt to further aggravate the situation, the general orders his Tu-22M Backfire pilots to strike an American aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) in the North Sea under the false information that a United States ICBM has attacked Moscow. The strike is successful, an in response President Fowler orders two United States Air Force F-16s to attack a Russian air base. Tensions mount as trust between Fowler and Nemerov rapidly deteriorates. Fearing that Russia will strike the United States, Fowler orders the military to maximum readiness, preparing to launch a massive nuclear strike on Russian military targets. Seeing that the U.S. has dispatched stealth bombers and nuclear submarines, Nemerov prepares to launch his ICBM's on the United States.
Ryan first discovers from the Army radiological assessment team that the plutonium for the Baltimore bomb was manufactured in Savannah River nuclear plant in South Carolina in 1968, thus indicating that the original device was of American, not Russian, origin. He tries, unsuccessfully, to communicate this information to President Fowler. Ryan further discovers that Dressler was behind the Baltimore attack. After being with the dying William Cabot, Ryan takes Cabot's personal effects, and with Cabot's text messenger, asks Spinnaker where the missing plutonium went. Spinnaker tells him that the United States had secretly managed to send it to Israel for their nuclear weapons program, an allegation also made by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre in their book, The Fifth Horseman.
Ryan gets to the Baltimore harbor docks, finds the neo-Nazi manager Lod Mason murdered by Dressler's South African assassin, who then tries to kill Ryan, but is subdued by Ryan, but nevertheless refuses to say anything as Baltimore police sent by Langley go to Ryan's aid. Via a Maryland State Police helicopter, Ryan manages to get to The Pentagon, where he is able to communicate the truth to President Nemerov. Relying on Ryan's word, Nemerov proposes a plan to Fowler to a stand down, preventing a nuclear war.
The two presidents meet and make peace as agents of both governments hunt down and assassinate the terrorist conspirators. John Clark slits Olson's throat, Russian agents pursue and shoot the Russian Air Force general in a snow-covered forest, and as Spinnaker looks on, a carefully-placed car bomb does not kill Dressler's bodyguard when he starts the car, but kills Dressler after he replaces his bodyguard at the wheel, closes the door, and punches his cigarette lighter, which pops up as his car explodes. [In terrorist circles, drivers began to be required to start the car engine as a response to car bombs; assassins have had to adapt to avoid needless killings.]^[1]
The final scene takes place in Washington, D.C., where Presidents Fowler and Nemerov address the Baltimore tragedy and the future of Weapons of Mass Destruction during a speech on the White House lawn. In a nearby park, Ryan and Cathy Mueller are having a picnic when they are approached by Grushkov. It is revealed that Grushkov is Spinnaker: Cabot's covert source in Moscow. Grushkov gives Dr. Mueller a "modest gift" for her engagement to Ryan. Mueller and Ryan are perplexed, as they have not told anyone of their engagement. Ryan asks Grushkov how he could possibly know this secret, but he simply smiles, shrugs and walks away.
'Tagline': ''27,000 Nuclear Weapons. One Is Missing.''

Main cast

★ Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan

★ Morgan Freeman as DCI William Cabot

★ Bridget Moynahan as Dr. Catherine Muller

★ James Cromwell as President J. Robert Fowler

★ Liev Schreiber as John Clark

★ Michael Byrne as Anatoli Grushkov

★ Colm Feore as Olson

★ Alan Bates as Richard Dressler

★ Ron Rifkin as Secy. State Sidney Owens

★ Ciarán Hinds as President Nemerov

★ Bruce McGill as NSA Gene Revell

★ Richard Marner as President Zorkin

★ Philip Baker Hall as Secy. Defence David Becker

★ Ken Jenkins as Admiral Pollack

★ John Beasley as General Lasseter

Deviations from the book

While the basic plot was the same, there were significant changes from the book. Noting these substantial changes, in the commentary track on the DVD release, Tom Clancy jokingly introduces himself as "the author of the book that he [Phil Alden Robinson, who is present with Clancy] ignored".

★ The original terrorists in the novel were Muslim extremists, but in the movie, they are changed to neo-fascists. A common misconception is that this was done as a reaction to the September 11 attacks. However, the movie was filmed months before 9/11; it finished filming in June 2001. On the "making-of" DVD extra, the director says that this was purely for elements relating to the plot, as Muslim extremists would not be able to plausibly accomplish all that was necessary for the story to work. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) did mount a 2-year lobbying campaign that ended on January 26, 2001 against using "Muslim villains", as the original book version did. Director Phil Alden Robinson is quoted in a letter to CAIR saying "I hope you will be reassured that I have no intention of promoting negative images of Muslims or Arabs, and I wish you the best in your continuing efforts to combat discrimination."[1] Screenwriter Dan Pyne claims that the decision to not use Arab terrorists was “possibly because that has become a cliche. At the time that I started writing the ''Sum Of All Fears'', Joerg Haider was just starting to come into play in Austria. And simultaneous with that, I think, there was some neo-nationalist activity in Holland, and there was stuff going on in Spain and in Italy. So it seemed like a logical and lasting idea that would be universal.”^[2] It has also been noted that a larger percent of profits stems from international audiences, and American filmmakers work to avoid alienating large segments of this customer base.

★ The attacked city was changed from Denver to Baltimore. References to the "Super Bowl", "San Diego Chargers", and "Minnesota Vikings" were made generic. The game scenes were filmed at Olympic Stadium in Montreal, with CFL teams standing in for the game's participants. Although the game clearly takes places indoors, overhead shots of Baltimore in the film reveal its football stadium as being an outdoor facility.

★ In the novel, President Fowler did not attend the game, relying on the advice of the Secret Service.

★ The bomb in the movie is a tactical fission device, not a thermonuclear bomb as in the book.

★ The "battle for Berlin" is excluded from the script (since the book was based in the late 1980s there is still a Soviet garrison in the city and during the course of the book, there is a clash between Russian and American tanks)- although the Berlin Brigade, which was historically deactivated in 1994, is mentioned at the beginning of the movie.

★ Spinnaker (the mole in the Russian government) is actually found to be an unreliable source because he is making up or changing information for his own benefit to become a president of the USSR (or the Russian Federation).

★ Robby Jackson's role is omitted.

★ Dr. Elizabeth Elliot's role is omitted.

★ Instead of the U.S. fighters shooting down Libyan MiGs, the USS ''John C. Stennis'' is attacked by Backfire bombers.

★ Since the film is a reboot, some details of Jack Ryan's life are changed. In the film, Jack Ryan is a low-level intelligence analyst, whereas he is the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence in the book. The film also shows Ryan dating Catherine Muller and meeting John Clark for the first time, while in the book he is already married to Muller and they have children; Ryan met Clark in ''Clear and Present Danger''.

Sources

1. Gayle Rivers, The War Against the Terrorists: How to Win It, 1987, Jove Books
2. Casting Calls

External links

★ Official DVD Site