Search - Patriot Games on DVD

K. K. (GAMER)
Reviewed on 1/26/2022...

Harrison Ford, Sean Bean, Anne Archer, Patrick Bergin and others shine in this. You get to a see a very young Thora Birch if you like her films. A must for Ford, Action, Suspense and Spy movies!

Beware! The Blu-ray STINKS!

L. Donovan | North Dakota, USA | 03/24/2010

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I have no idea how the transfer process works, but there is something really hinky going on with this one. It's almost like it has a filter over it that looks vaguely like a screen door. It's most obvious in darker shots and it also pulsates, to make it that much more annoying. Paramount needs to step up and do a decent transfer."

Patriot Games

Arnita D. Brown | USA | 01/06/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Jack Ryan tries to stop an IRA fringe group from carrying out an assassination attempt on English royals and is subsequently brought back into the CIA in order to save his now threatened family. Patriot Games is a very good movie. The visuals are good, and the story is full of little twists and turns as well. If you have never seen it you're really missing out.

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For his family's sake

Chrijeff | Scranton, PA | 01/18/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"While not as relentlessly suspenseful as The Hunt for Red October (Special Collector's Edition), the second Jack Ryan movie still has plenty of action and suspense to offer. Ryan (Harrison Ford) has moved back to the USA, left the CIA, and joined the teaching staff at Annapolis. He's in London with his wife Caroline (Anne Archer) and 10-year-old daughter Sally (Thora Birch) to deliver a lecture at the Royal Naval College when he walks unwittingly into an attempt by Irish terrorists Kevin O'Donnell (Patrick Bergin) and Sean Miller (Sean Bean) to assassinate a kinsman of the Queen and, as he later explains, "can't just stand by and let him kill those people." His intervention results in the death of Miller's kid brother Paddy (Karl Hayden) and Miller's own arrest, and the man vows revenge. What Ryan doesn't realize is that Miller and O'Donnell are part of a radical splinter group of the IRA: though most brigade commanders of the organization believe that nothing will turn the people against them faster than striking at the beloved "royals," O'Donnell insists that "England at its heart is still a monarchy, and that is where we must strike--at the royal family and the ruling class." When Miller's cohorts help him escape and flee the country, Ryan begins to wonder if the man will actually attempt his promised vengeance. His old friend Adm. Greer (James Earl Jones) doesn't believe it, but an attempted hit on Jack's wife and daughter changes the face of things and sends Jack back to the CIA in a desperate attempt to track down the renegades before they can try again. A wonderfully tense climax is played out at Jack's home on Chesapeake Bay against the background of a building storm, as Miller and O'Donnell attempt not only to finish their business with the Ryans but to make a second and successful try to kill their original victim (James Fox).

It takes some doing to translate one of Tom Clancy's complex technothrillers to the screen with accuracy, yet scriptwriters Iliff & Stewart and director Simon Wincer manage it without either leaving holes in continuity or neglecting the larger political picture of separatist sentiment and intra-organizational feuding against which Ryan's involvement takes place. The high-tech night raid on the Libyan camp where Miller & Co. are training is one of the movie's high points, but of course the best part is the long climactic sequence at the Ryans' home. And Harrison Ford, with his blend of insouciance and ferocity, seems somehow much more convincing than Alec Baldwin might have been in the same situation--a family man who gets involved not out of any particular convictions but, as he says, "just rage," and so becomes an important catalyst in affairs much larger than he realizes. Though it's rated R and does include considerable violence, several uses of the F-word, and one not-too-graphic sex scene, I didn't find any of it gratuitous or offensive, and families with mature youngsters should be able to view it without any major difficulty."