Skip to main content

Sean Connery month: The Hunt for Red October

 A retrospective by Brooks Rich

To discuss a legend like Sean Connery, one would think I would start with Dr. No and go from there. We will get there but I decided to start with a film that would also let me make up some ground for the canceled John McTiernan month from awhile ago. McTiernan ends his most famous hat trick of films, starting with Predator in 1987 and concluding with the amazing action-thriller The Hunt For Red October from 1990, based on the book by Tom Clancy.

Sean Connery is Marko Ramius, a Soviet submarine commander who is taking the newest Soviet sub out for a test run. The sub, the Red October, is able to move silently through the water and past the sonar of the US navy, meaning they can have nuclear warheads off the coast without warning. Ramius thinks this is unacceptable and too much power for his country to have. He has decided to defect and turn the Red October over. The US and Soviets are after him. The US thinks he has gone crazy and is coming to launch on the US, save for one man, a CIA analyst named Jack Ryan, played by Alec Baldwin. 

Got give credit to McTiernan for this film. There was a brief moment in time where he was the best action director working. While Hunt For Red October is no Die Hard, it is still an insanely good action thriller. It's more of a chess game than a balls to the wall action film. 

Connery commands the screen in this film, no pun intended. He is at his most charismatic and intense here. There are different eras of Connery's career in my opinion. There is of course the Bond era. From there Bond era he would play a variety of different characters in the late '70s and early '80s with films like The Man Who Would Be King, Outland, and In the Name of the Rose. Starting with The Untouchables, Connery would enter the badass old guy stage of his career,  playing intense badass old men who are always the toughest guy in the room. Ramius is sort of a mix of the tough old guy and Bond. 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Forgotten Film Friday: Absolute Power

Clint Eastwood stars as Luther Whitney, a jewel thief who works in the Washington DC area. One night while he is stealing from a mansion he is forced to hide in a secret compartment with a two way mirror. From there he observes a sexual rezendevous with the wife of a powerful man and the President of the United States Alan Richmond (Gene Hackman) Suddenly the president gets aggressive and while defending herself the woman is shot to death by two Secret Service agents. Luther manages to get away with a letter opener the woman stabbed the president with. At first Luther plans to flee the country. But when he is disgusted by a statement the president makes, Luther decides to expose the crime. I miss these kind of films. The nineties was a great time for thrillers exactly like this. They are not the flashiest films but they are also not obsessed with big action scenes. It's all plot and character with them. Sure this plot might be a little out there but Eastwood makes it work. He's...
1 comment
Read more

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

A retrospective by Brooks Rich Let's kick off the spooky season with a bona fide classic. I love the horror genre, but not much really scares or creeps me out. Most horror films I just watch and enjoy. However, 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' is one of those that really gets under my skin, and not just because the Sawyer family are eating people. The way Tobe Hooper shoots the film gives it an almost documentary feel. If you have never seen 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre,' you should probably fix that immediately. Do I need to explain what it's about? A group of '70s kids is driving across Texas in a van and runs afoul of the Sawyer family, including the man himself, Leatherface. It's a classic of the horror genre and one of the pioneers of the '70s and '80s horror boom. The film has a reputation for being sickeningly bloody and violent, but that is not true. It's essentially a bloodless film, which makes it even more horrifying. Most of the violence...
Post a Comment
Read more

John Candy month

 What can you say about John Candy? He was a comic genius who was taken from us too soon. There were a lot of comedic heavyweights of the eighties and nineties but Candy stood above most of them. If there is a Mount Rushmore of comedy I imagine John Candy would be on it. For the month of July we are honoring this comic genius. 
Post a Comment
Read more