This Thrilling Harrison Ford Movie Turned the Jack Ryan Films From a One-Off Into a Legitimate Action Franchise

January 26, 20254 Mins Read

While the novels in the Jack Ryan series by Tom Clancy had always been popular, the success of the feature film adaptation of The Hunt For Red October led to significantly higher level of interest in future installments in the franchise. The Hunt For Red October is a terrific Cold War thriller that showed what a genius John McTiernan was as an action storyteller, but it was a film in which the Russian captain, played by Sean Connery, ended up being a more significant character than Alec Baldwin’s depiction of Ryan. Patriot Games changed the direction of the Jack Ryan franchise by putting more emphasis on action and conspiracies. Although Clancy himself had misgivings about the film when it was initially in production, he was eventually won over by the excellent performance by Harrison Ford.

‘Patriot Games’ Was Very Different From ‘The Hunt for Red October’

After Baldwin ended up exiting negotiations for a sequel to The Hunt For Red October, Paramount Pictures needed to find a new actor that could show a different side of Ryan. The Hunt For Red October kept Ryan relatively out of the action, as he mostly served as an analyst examining the movements of a Soviet Union submarine, which he only joins in the final half of the story. Comparatively, Patriot Games features an older version of Ryan who has given up field work in order to study history at the United States Naval Academy. Despite being determined to stay out of any particularly intense scenarios in order to protect his family, Ryan ends up being drawn back into an espionage plot when he kills a member of the Irish Republican Army while he vacationing in London.

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Clancy was initially concerned about the direction of the sequel, as he felt that Ford was far too old to play a character that he had written to be a young man. However, Patriot Games was able to lean into the idea that this was a version of Ryan that already had significant experience under his belt, and was only called in for highly sensitive projects. Although Ford had proven time and time again that he was one of the greatest action stars of all-time, Patriot Games allowed him to show that Ryan was a brilliant thinker whose mind was his most valuable asset. Clancy was ultimately impressed by what Ford did with the role because of the way in which the film brought to life the complex nature of United States military and espionage procedures. The film shows the defiance that has always made Ryan such a compelling character; although he considers himself to be very patriotic, Ryan is not willing to support his government if it does something that he does not believe in.

‘Patriot Games’ Launched Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan

Ford was able to turn Patriot Games into an elevated genre thriller that stood out compared to the other action films that were released that decade. Although the gunfight in London is a particularly intense sequence, Patriot Games puts more emphasis on suspense and intrigue than it does on action. Ryan is trying to ensure that the tensions between the IRA and the government agents hunting them down does not escalate, as he does not want to become involved in a larger conflict. At the same time, Ryan fears that asserting himself as a leader in the operation could inadvertently put his family in danger. Since Ford was a bit older than he was during the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies, he was able to give a more vulnerable performance.

The subsequent installments in the Jack Ryan franchise ended up drawing inspiration from Patriot Games. Clear and Present Danger was a terrific sequel that featured Ford reprising his role as Ryan during another international espionage mission that forces him to question the actions that his country was capable of. Although The Sum of All Fears and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit were considered disappointments because they felt too much like generic blockbusters, the recent Amazon Prime series Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan succeeded by emulating the tone of Patriot Games. The Hunt For Red October may be one of the greatest submarine thrillers ever made, but Patriot Games truly captured the essence of Clancy’s source material.