The Hunt for Red October (1990)

This review includes full spoilers. Proceed accordingly. For other movie reviews from me, click HERE:

Dusty: Listen, I’m a blogger, which means I’m a cheat and a liar, and when I’m not giving recycled opinions, I’m marketing myself to new subscribers. But it also means I keep my options open.

Rating: PG
Director: John McTierman
Writers: Tom Clancy (based on the novel by), Larry Ferguson (screenplay), Donald E. Stewart (screenplay)
Stars: Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Fred Thompson, Scott Glenn, Sam Neill, James Earl Jones, Peter Firth, Tim Curry
Release Date: March 2, 1990 (United States)
Run time: 2 hours, 15 minutes

THE PLOT:

(via wiki)

In November 1984, Soviet submarine captain Marko Ramius is given command of Red October, a new Typhoon-class ballistic missile submarine with a “caterpillar drive“, rendering it undetectable to passive sonar. Ramius leaves port in northern Russia to conduct exercises along with Alfa-class attack submarine V. K. Konovalov, commanded by his former student Captain Tupolev. At sea, Ramius secretly kills political officer Ivan Putin and relays false orders to his crew that they are to conduct missile drills off America’s east coast. American Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Dallas, which had been shadowing Red October, loses contact once the sub’s caterpillar drive is engaged.

CIA analyst and former Marine Jack Ryan is based in London, but returns to Washington. After consulting with Vice Admiral James Greer, the Deputy Director of the CIA, Ryan briefs government officials on Red October and the threat it poses. Upon learning that the bulk of the Soviet Navy has been deployed to the Atlantic to find and sink the sub, they conclude that Ramius plans a renegade nuclear strike. During the briefing, Ryan hypothesizes that Ramius, a native-born Lithuanian widower with few remaining personal ties to the Soviet Union, instead plans to defect to the United States. National Security Advisor Jeffrey Pelt gives Ryan three days to confirm his theory before the U.S. Navy will be ordered to find and sink Red October. Ryan sets out to rendezvous with an aircraft carrier in the mid-Atlantic. Meanwhile, after some delay, Tupolev also receives orders to intercept and destroy Red October.

Due to an unknown saboteur’s actions, Red October‘s caterpillar drive malfunctions during risky maneuvers through a narrow undersea canyon. Petty Officer Jones, a sonar technician aboard Dallas, discovers a way to detect Red October using his underwater acoustics software, and Dallas plots an intercept course. After a hazardous mid-ocean transfer, Ryan is able to board Dallas, where he attempts to persuade its captain, Commander Bart Mancuso, to contact Ramius and determine his real intentions.

The Soviet ambassador informs the U.S. government that Ramius is a renegade and asks for help in sinking Red October. That order is sent to the U.S. fleet, including Dallas, which has reacquired the Soviet sub. Ryan remains convinced that Ramius plans to defect with his officers and finally convinces Mancuso to contact Ramius and offer assistance. Ramius, stunned that the Americans correctly guessed his plan, accepts Mancuso’s offer. Ramius then stages a nuclear reactor “emergency”, ordering the sub to surface and his crew to abandon ship. After a U.S. frigate is spotted heading right for them, Ramius submerges, leaving his crew in life rafts. Ryan, Mancuso, and Jones board Red October via a rescue sub, at which point Ramius turns over his sub to the Americans and requests asylum for himself and his officers.

Red October is suddenly ambushed by Konovalov. As the two Soviet subs maneuver, one of Red October‘s cooks, Loginov, reveals himself to be an undercover GRU agent and the saboteur. He opens fire on the bridge, fatally wounding first officer Vasily Borodin, before retreating to the missile bay, intending to ignite a missile engine and destroy the ship. Loginov is pursued by Ryan and Ramius, and he wounds Ramius before being killed by Ryan. Meanwhile, Konovalov fires upon Red October with a torpedo, which Dallas is able to divert toward herself and evade by launching countermeasures and conducting an emergency blow to the surface. The torpedo reacquires Red October but Mancuso executes a maneuver that diverts the torpedo towards Konovalov, which it strikes and destroys. The crew of Red October, now rescued, witness the submerged explosion from the deck of the U.S. frigate. Unaware of the second Soviet submarine, they believe that Ramius has sacrificed himself and scuttled Red October to avoid being boarded.

Ryan and Ramius, their subterfuge complete, navigate Red October to the Penobscot River in Maine. Ramius admits that he defected because he believed Red October was intended for a preemptive nuclear first strike against the United States and was unwilling to support such an action. Ryan boards a flight home and thanks to his exertions is finally able to sleep aboard a plane, while seated next to a teddy bear intended for his daughter.

MY REVIEW:

I completely recommend watching The Hunt for Red October to everyone. It’s just a great movie. Even if it were a bad movie, I’d still recommend giving it a watch solely so that you can hear its awesome film score by Basil Poledouris. Fortunately though, I do not have to give the recommendation with that type of qualification.

The movie, based on the Tom Clancy novel with the same title, was based on a real life 1975 mutiny by the Soviet destroyer Storozhevoy (translated Sentry) aimed at overthrowing Leonid Brezhnev and the Soviet government. Here, the goal of Ramius (Sean Connery) is to avoid nuclear annihilation – with the Soviet captain not trusting his government to possess a submarine with the capabilities of the Red October.

The two main stars of this film are Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin. Connery is outstanding. Inexplicably, his thick Scottish accent works extremely well as the English-speaking accent of a high ranking Soviet military officer. In addition to his accent working unexpectedly well, he looked and felt the part. Connery oozes a sense of well-controlled danger. I found myself actually having a harder time with Baldwin as Jack Ryan. There wasn’t anything notably bad about his performance, and maybe I am unfairly biased after having seen many other actors play the “Jack Ryan” character in the intervening decades, but Baldwin just did not quite feel right in the role. His version of Ryan felt too white collar to me. That’s really just a nitpick, though, and I readily admit my mind might be changed with a reread of the source material. Other great performances in the film included Fred Thompson as Admiral Painter and Tim Curry as Dr. Petrov, both of whom dominated the screen when featured. James Earl Jones and Sam Neill were also very good.

The tension of the story is built around a familiar idea. One guy (Jack Ryan) is right about something significant while everyone above him in command is wrong. The audience then waits out the tension until either he convinces his superiors or he is proven to be correct after a tragic accident. Here Ryan eventually does succeed, though narrowly and the ride was enjoyable.

The special effects and the set design for the submarine were excellent in the sense that I never saw things on screen that took me out of the scene. As this movie is more than three decades old, I consider that quite an achievement.

For me, as I mentioned above, the best part of the movie is the score, the sound effects, and the sound editing. I was not surprised – upon investigation after watching the movie – to learn that this is where the bulk of the movie’s awards accrued.

Award	Category	Nominee	Result
1991 63rd Academy Awards	Best Film Editing	Dennis Virkler, John Wright	Nominated
	Best Sound	Richard Bryce Goodman, Richard Overton, Kevin F. Cleary, Don J. Bassman	Nominated
	Best Sound Effects Editing	Cecelia Hall, George Watters II	Won
1991 44th British Academy Film Awards	Best Actor	Sean Connery	Nominated
	Best Production Design	Terence Marsh	Nominated
	Best Sound	Cecelia Hall, George Watters II, Richard Bryce Goodman, Don J. Bassman	Nominated
1991 BMI Film Music Awards	BMI Film Music Award	Basil Poledouris	Won
1991 Motion Picture Sound Editors Awards	Best Sound Editing – ADR	————

Overall, I really enjoyed The Hunt for Red October, particularly Sean Connery’s performance and its musical score. I expect to be playing it via Spotify for the next several days.

Have you seen The Hunt for Red October? If so, what did you think?

Originally published March 28, 2024