The Hunt For Red October

Adventure, Thriller, Action

Sean Connery	Marko Ramius
Alec Baldwin	Jack Ryan
Scott Glenn	Bartolomeo Vito Mancuso
Sam Neill	Vasily Borodin
James Earl Jones	James Greer
Timothy Carhart	Bill Steiner
Joss Ackland	Andrei Lysenko
Tim Curry	Dr. Petrov
Tomas Arana	Igor Loginov
Michael George Benko	Ivan

Director	John McTiernan
Producer	Mace Neufeld; Larry DeWaay
Writer	Larry Ferguson; Tom Clancy
Cinematography	Jan de Bont
Musician	Basil Poledouris

Before Harrison Ford assumed the mantle of playing Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan hero in Patriot Games, Alec Baldwin took a swing at the character in this John McTiernan film and hit one to the fence. If less instantly sympathetic than Ford, Baldwin is in some respects more interesting and nuanced as Ryan, and drawing comparisons between both actors' performances can make for some interesting postmovie discussion. That aside, The Hunt for Red October stands alone as a uniquely exciting adventure with a fantastic costar: Sean Connery as a Russian nuclear submarine captain attempting to defect to the West on his ship. Ryan must figure out his true motives for approaching the U.S. McTiernan (Predator, Die Hard) made an exceptionally handsome movie here with action sequences that really do take one's breath away. --Tom Keogh