The Hunt for Red October: 35 Years On

Sean Connery dominates John McTiernan's adaptation of Tom Clancy's bestseller, but these days, the film feels more alarming

Credit: Paramount

Warning: Contains spoilers

In the world of onscreen spies, Jack Ryan can be considered a bit beige. Not as glamorous as James Bond, not as dangerous as Jason Bourne, not as death-defying as Ethan Hunt, and not as plausible as George Smiley. Not even a star presence like Harrison Ford breathes much life into his CIA analyst character (as seen in Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger, in 1992 and 1994, respectively). Quite honestly, all other iterations of the secret agent tend to go in one ear and out the other, whilst being perfectly agreeable to watch at the time.

Yet it isn’t Alec Baldwin’s turn as Ryan in 1990’s The Hunt for Red October that makes the film memorable, but Sean Connery, as rogue Soviet submarine captain Marko Ramius. Yes, Baldwin was the first screen incarnation of Tom Clancy’s bestselling hero but Connery dominates the film, and he is what I most remembered from the time I first saw it at the cinema with my father. By then, as I approached the middle of my teenage years, my father made a point of taking an interest in my cinematic obsessions, which I always appreciated, and he often tagged along. In the case of this film, he liked it more than I did, but I remembered enjoying Connery’s performance.

I’d not rewatched the film in some years but decided to give it another spin on its 35th anniversary, at the urging of my youngest child. The intervening years have been kind, and I found it a far stronger prospect this time around, especially given an unfortunate contemporary relevancy I’ll come to in a moment. At any rate, I recall finding the build-up somewhat slow, but it’s often foolish to trust the views of my teenage self. Indeed, my aforementioned teenage child seems to have much sharper critical faculties compared with 15-year-old me, and this is a case in point. The Hunt for Red October takes its time but is never boring.