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Created Jul 29, 2010 04:42PM PST • Edited Jan 23, 2014 10:33AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Good 3.0

   Movies from Tom Clancy novels reliably deliver realistic military trappings and brisk plotting, with Clear and Present Danger a classic of the breed. Dating from the era when cocaine kingpins effectively controlled Columbia, it still seems relevant now that endemic narco-crime has moved north to Mexico.

   Plus Harrison Ford and a cast of redoubtable stars know how to deliver in this sort of movie. Interestingly, it’s directed by Philip Noyce, who’s latest action pik is in theaters now: Salt.

4. Acting

   Good 3.0

   Harrison Ford does an entirely serviceable job playing nice-guy hero Jack Ryan, the kind of action star who often loses his keys yet always comes through in the clutch.

   Supporting players are all fine, albeit in a Movie-of-the-Week sort of way. Still a cast that includes Willem Dafoe, Anne Archer, Joaquim de Almeida, Henry Czerny, Harris Yulin, Donald Moffat and Miguel Sandoval ain’t exactly chopped liver, even if Sandoval has become typecast as the Latin Crime Boss, here playing a loose recreation of cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar.

   Oh yeah, James Earl Jones is nearly wasted here as an American hero struck down with cancer, and therefore largely irrelevant to the story.

5. Male Stars Very Good 3.5

6. Female Stars Good 3.0

7. Female Costars Good 3.0

8. Male Costars Good 3.0

10. Film

    Good 3.0

11. Direction Good 3.0

12. Play Good 3.0

13. Music Good 3.0

14. Visuals Great 4.0

    From the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) to the Coast Guard Cutters apprehending a boat on the high seas, movies from Clancy novels are great at military visuals.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.7

17. Sex Innocent 1.0

18. Violence Fierce 2.1

19. Rudeness Salty 1.9

21. Reality

    Glib 1.6

    Columbia has turned itself around in the nearly 20 years since the movie was made. No longer a narco-state, it’s now a reasonably healthy democracy with good civil order. Let’s hope Mexico can make similar progress over the next decade or so.

22. Circumstantial Glib 2.0

23. Biological Glib 1.8

24. Physical Natural 1.0