The Sum of All Fears (2002)

Director:

Phil Alden Robinson

Writers (WGA):

Tom Clancy (novel)
Paul Attanasio (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

31 May 2002 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

27,000 Nuclear Weapons. One Is Missing.

Plot:

CIA analyst Jack Ryan must thwart the plans of a terrorist faction that threatens to induce a catastrophic conflict between the United States and Russia's newly elected president by detonating a nuclear weapon at a football game in Baltimore.

Plot Keywords:

CIA | Russia | Jack Ryan | Nuclear Bomb | Scientist

Awards:

2 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Ben Affleck	...	Jack Ryan
Morgan Freeman	...	DCI William Cabot
James Cromwell	...	President Robert 'Bob' Fowler
Ken Jenkins	...	Admiral Pollack
Liev Schreiber	...	John Clark
Bruce McGill	...	National Security Advisor Gene Revell
John Beasley	...	General Lasseter
Russell Bobbitt	...	Israeli Pilot
Philip Baker Hall	...	Defense Secretary David Becker
Al Vandecruys	...	US STRATCOM Colonel
Richard Cohee	...	Mt. Weather General
Philip Pretten	...	President's Military Aide
Alison Darcy	...	Fowler's Aide
Richard Marner	...	President Zorkin
Ostap Soroka	...	Zorkin's Translator

Also Known As:

Der Anschlag (Germany)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for violence, disaster images and brief strong language.

Runtime:

124 min | Spain:128 min

Country:

USA | Germany

Language:

English | Russian | Ukrainian | German | Arabic

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Iceland:12 | South Korea:12 | Malaysia:U | New Zealand:M | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Austria:12 (Steiermark) | Austria:16 | Brazil:12 | Canada:14A (DVD rating) | Finland:K-15 | Germany:12 | Hong Kong:IIA | Netherlands:12 | Norway:15 | Peru:14 | Philippines:PG-13 | Singapore:PG | Spain:13 | Sweden:11 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:12 (canton of the Grisons) | UK:12 | USA:PG-13 (certificate #38988)

Filming Locations:

Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

During the opening a nuclear bomb is shown being rolled out to be loaded on an Israeli A-4 Skyhawk. However, the bomb designed for the scene could not be physically carried by the A-4 so the subsequent scenes of the plane have had to have a CGI bomb attached in post production.

Goofs:

Factual errors: In the blast scene from inside the hospital, the shock wave and flash of light arrive together. The only way for this to happen is if the hospital was right next to the stadium, in which case the hospital would be obliterated by the fireball. For everyone else, further from the explosion, they would first be blinded/burned by the light for seconds before the shock wave hits them as the shock wave travels only at about the speed of sound. Also in the TV the blast in the stadium is seen the fraction of a second before the blast hits the hospital. Even with a direct link to the camera in the stadium the picture of the blast couldn't arrive earlier than the flash of the light.

Quotes:

[en route to Russia]
Cabot: Jack... Jack, what are you doing?
Jack: Oh... I had a date tonight, so I had to call and cancel...
Cabot: Well, don't be stupid! Tell her where you're going. In fact, tell her who you work for. She'll be impressed.
Jack: [to Cathy, over the phone] OK. I work for the CIA, and the Director asked me at the last minute to come with him to Russia with him to do a nuclear arms inspection. Hello?
Cathy: That is so lame.
Jack: No, I swear, it's because of the START treaty, we get to inspect to make sure they're really decommissioning their nuclear arsenal...
[Cathy hangs up]
Jack: Hello... hello?
[Cabot starts laughing]
[...]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The DiCaprio Code (2006)

Soundtrack:

The Mission

Holes big enough to fly a jet through

This is a ridiculous movie. First the casting of Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan just doesn't make sense, chronologically (he's already been played by the much older Harrison Ford and Alec Baldwin) or physically – Affleck just isn't commanding enough for the role. Secondly the movie is simply capitalizing on North America's new found fear of terrorism on home turf, and thirdly the screenwriter Paul Attanasio took huge liberties with the Tom Clancy novel, including, in a stroke of misguided political correctness, changing the bad guys from Middle Eastern to Nazis. Of course everyone hates Nazis, so the filmmakers are not going to offend anyone (Hollywood finds it so hard to get good hateful villains now that Russia is no longer communist) but are we to believe that there is a worldwide conspiracy by super-rich and powerful Nazis to pit two world powers against one another? And how, after the blast (yes, there is a huge atomic explosion), does Ben Affleck piece together this entire conspiracy using only a cell phone and a palm pilot? I'm willing to suspend disbelief in most movies, but this movie has holes big enough to fly a jet through.