hunt for red october movie review

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The movies have one sure way of involving us that never fails.

They give us a character who is right when everybody else is wrong and then invite us to share his frustration as he tries to talk some sense into the blockheads. In "The Hunt for Red October," that character is Jack Ryan, the intelligence man who believes he knows the real reason why a renegade Soviet skipper is trying to run away with a submarine.

The skipper's name is Ramius, and he is the most respected man in the Soviet underwater navy. He has trained most of the other captains in the fleet, and now he has been given the controls of an advanced new submarine named Red October - a sub that uses a revolutionary new drive that is faster than any other ship beneath the waves and almost completely silent. American intelligence tracks the Red October as it leaves its Soviet shipyard, but then the sub seems to disappear. Soon after, the entire Soviet navy mobilizes itself into a vast cat-and-mouse game in the North Atlantic.

The Soviets would like their American counterparts to believe that Ramius is a madman who wants to hide his sub off the American coast and aim its nuclear missiles at New York or Washington. They ask the U.S. Navy to help them track and destroy the Red October. But Ryan ( Alec Baldwin ) believes that would be a tragic mistake. He tells his superior, an admiral played by James Earl Jones , that Ramius is actually trying to defect and to bring his submarine along with him.

That is the setup for John McTiernan's film, as it was for Tom Clancy's best-selling novel, and in both cases it is also the starting point for a labyrinthine plot in which, half of the time, we have to guess at the hidden reasons for Ramius' actions. It is a tribute to the movie, which has much less time than Clancy did at book length, that it allows the plot its full complexity and yet is never less than clear to the audience.

Many military thrillers, especially those set in the Cold War period, rely on stereotyping and large, crude motivations to move their stories along. "The Hunt for Red October" has more fun by suggesting how easily men can go wrong, how false assumptions can seem seductive and how enormous consequences can sometimes hang by slender threads.

Ryan's knowledge of Ramius' personality, for example, upon which so much depends, is based almost entirely on one occasion when they dined at the same table. Everything else is simply a series of skilled hunches.

McTiernan, whose previous films were " Predator " and " Die Hard ," showed a sense of style and timing in those movies, but what he adds in "The Hunt for Red October" is something of the same detached intelligence that Clancy brought to the novel. Somehow we feel this is more than a thriller, it's an exercise in military and diplomatic strategy in which the players are all smart enough that we can't take their actions for granted.

"The Hunt for Red October" has more than a dozen important speaking roles, in addition to many more cast members who are crucial for a scene or two. Any film with a cast this large must depend to some extent on typecasting. We couldn't keep the characters straight any other way. What McTiernan does is to typecast without stereotyping.

Sean Connery makes a convincing Ramius, and yet, with his barely concealed Scots accent, he is far from being a typical movie Soviet.

Baldwin, as the dogged intelligence officer, has the looks of a leading man, but he dials down his personality. He presents himself as a deck-bound bureaucrat who can't believe he has actually gotten himself into this field exercise. And Scott Glenn , as the commander of a U.S.

submarine that finds itself within yards of the silent Red October, is leaner, younger, and has more edge than most of the standard movie skipper types.

The production design lends a lot to the movie's credibility.

I'm told that the interiors of submarines in this movie look a good deal more high-tech and glossy than they do in real life - that there would be more grease around on a real sub - and yet, for the movie screen, these subs look properly impressive, with their awesome displays of electronic gadgetry. The movie does not do as good a job of communicating the daily and hourly reality of submarine life as " Das Boot " did, but perhaps that's because we are never trapped and claustrophobic inside a sub for the whole movie. There are cutaways to the White House and CIA headquarters in Langley, to the Kremlin and to the decks of ships at sea.

If there's one area where the movie is truly less than impres sive, it's the underwater exterior shots. Using models of submarines, the filmmakers have attempted to give an impression of these behemoths maneuvering under the sea. But the outside of a submarine is not intrinsically photogenic, and what these shots most look like are large, gray, bloated whales seen through dishwater.

And yet that lapse doesn't much matter. "The Hunt for Red October" is a skillful, efficient film that involves us in the clever and deceptive game being played by Ramius and in the best efforts of those on both sides to figure out what he plans to do with his submarine - and how he plans to do it. The movie is constructed so we can figure that out along with everybody else, and that leaves a lot of surprises for the conclusion, which is quite satisfactorily suspenseful. There was only one question that bothered me throughout the movie. As one whose basic ideas about submarines come from Cmdr.

Edward Beach's classic "Run Silent, Run Deep," in which the onboard oxygen supply was a source of constant concern, I kept asking myself if those Russian sailors should be smoking so much, down there in the depths of the ocean.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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The Hunt for Red October (1990)

134 minutes

Sean Connery as Marko Ramius

Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan

Scott Glenn as Bart Mancuso

Sam Neill as Vasily Borodin

James Earl Jones as James Greer

Joss Ackland as Andrei Lysenko

Richard Jordan as Jeffrey Pelt

Directed by

John McTiernan

Produced by

MacE Neufeld

Screenplay by

Larry Ferguson
Donald Stewart

Photographed by

Jan de Bont
Dennis Virkler
John Wright
Basil Poledouris

Based On The Novel by

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The Hunt for Red October Reviews

...a consistently watchable yet erratically-paced drama...

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 22, 2023

It's a tad obsolete, but that does not impede it from being tremendously dynamic and entertaining. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Nov 12, 2022

As an espionage thriller, I must say, it has a tension that runs against the clock like a torpedo under the sea as it outlines its plot of diplomacy and naval strategy in the twilight of the Cold War. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 25, 2022

If you liked the Cold War, you'll love The Hunt for Red October.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 18, 2021

...The Hunt for Red October still makes sense in a Boys' Own way even if the hopeful world described has long vanished...

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 2, 2021

With enough of a corkscrew plot to keep anyone guessing and with plenty of edge-of-your-seat suspense, this high-stakes espionage thriller never misses a beat.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Sep 14, 2020

With a chilly majesty to its scale despite its confined locations, this is a supremely confident film with the courage of its convictions as the story slowly and steadily unfolds. 30 years on it still packs a powerful punch, the tension ratcheting.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 10, 2018

It's to McTiernan's credit that so much of this is made intense. Every silence on board the Russian sub, whether they're squeaking through a narrow underwater canyon or sending out a single sonar ping, seems occasion to hold your breath.

Full Review | Oct 18, 2018

Coupled with Connery's magnetic performance, that's enough to make The Hunt for Red October as watchable today as it was during its 1990 release.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 8, 2018

the kind of action thriller that is rarely made today-one that emphasizes intellect and logic, intuition and political maneuvering over might and brawn

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 17, 2018

Clancy is known for writing difficult books, but the movie makes plausible a preposterous situation because of Baldwin's convincing, low-key approach to being a film hero.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 11, 2015

You may not be limp from accumulated tension when this hunt is over, but its cautiously upbeat global message leaves a satisfying glow and it operates with a crackerjack premise.

Full Review | Feb 11, 2015

The Hunt for Red October is a happy cinematic event, the first motion picture that allows us to experience the sweaty-palm thrills of the Cold War without worrying that the world will blow up this year.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 11, 2015

An exciting techno-suspense thriller with a hollow center.

Though Hunt shows fitful signs of life, it lacks the human drama of Das Boot, the technical dazzle of The Abyss and the old-fashioned brio of Run Silent, Run Deep.

Based on Tom Clancy`s phenomenally successful techno-thriller novel, The Hunt for Red October proves that a film can equal, if not surpass, the intrigue and excitement of the story it is based on.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 11, 2015

Like the nuclear submarine it's named after, The Hunt for Red October is big, shiny, and expensive. But it's also hard, cold, and cumbersome, just when it's trying hardest to be likable and even friendly.

Red October is an idealized, dreamy fantasy of life in the business world-harmless as airplane reading, a bit dull on the big screen.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 11, 2015

This is first-rate adventure stuff, an all-missions-accomplished submarine movie.

The Hunt for Red October is overplotted and sometimes implausible, but McTiernan's clipped style and lavish budget help it through the choppier waters.

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Reviews/Film; Connery as Captain of a Renegade Soviet Sub

By Vincent Canby

March 2, 1990

Very early in ''The Hunt for Red October,'' Marko Ramius (Sean Connery), the captain of a new, atomic-powered, top-of-the-line Soviet submarine named the Red October, barehandedly murders a fellow officer aboard ship.

The captain seems to be mad. He's been reading about Armageddon and it's known that he has been despondent ever since his wife died.

Good grief - a maniac in charge of a ship equipped with enough missiles to wipe out virtually every major city in the United States!

What's worse is that the Red October has a new hydropropulsion system, a technological breakthrough, which allows it to escape detection by even the most sophisticated sonar equipment. Only a hotshot sonar engineer would be able to tell the difference between the sounds of the Red October and the mating of whales.

It's conceivable that the lunatic captain could remain submerged off Coney Island and incinerate everything between the Ferris wheel and Denver. Is there no hope for mankind? On and off the pulses pound as the mind prepares to reel.

John McTiernan's ''Hunt for Red October,'' based on the Tom Clancy suspense novel, begins with a screen note to the effect that the events portrayed took place in November 1984, shortly before Mikhail S. Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union. The note adds, ''Nothing of what you are about to see ever happened.''

In terms of logic and politics, ''The Hunt for Red October'' is most peculiar, but it's not without its entertaining moments.

It's an elegy for those dear, dark, terrible days of the cold war, when it was either them or us, and before the world had become so thoroughly fractured that it's no longer possible to know exactly who the thems are.

It's the kind of movie in which the characters, like the lethal hardware, are simply functions of the plot, which in this case seems to be a lot more complex than it really is. Because everybody knows that the terrible things that might happen can't (or the movie would betray its genre), the only question is how they will be averted.

As a director, Mr. McTiernan, who got a lot of mileage out of some unlikely terrorists holding up a Los Angeles office building in ''Die Hard,'' is a hard-working mechanic. He and his screenwriters, Larry Ferguson and Donald Stewart, keep the movie puffing along. Among other revelations, Captain Ramius is not quite the madman he appeared to be at first.

The movie's explanation: the captain is Lithuanian, not Russian. Yet the complications accumulate.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff meet in Washington to debate whether Captain Ramius is planning a first assault on the United States, or maybe a defection. Only the audience knows for sure.

Washington dispatches Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin), a plucky C.I.A. agent who once met the captain, to the scene of the hunt. The movie dashes from London to Moscow to Washington to the Sea of Murmansk, the time and place of each new sequence announced in computer script that sounds top-secret important as it rat-a-tats onto the screen.

At one point, the Red October is being hunted by both the United States and Soviet fleets. The Russians are trying to torpedo their own ship. Aboard the Red October, the atomic reactor is verging on meltdown and a saboteur is trying to destroy the vessel from within.

It's both too much and not enough. It's fun in fits and starts, but also sort of lazy. Mr. McTiernan is not a subtle director. Punches are pulled constantly. The audience is told by word and soundtrack music when it should fear the worst, though the action on the screen gives the lie to such warnings.

The movie finally is never very convincing. Even the special effects aren't great.

Mr. Connery, however, wears the movie as if it were a favorite old hat. He makes it look good. The role barely exists but he gives it respectability and elan.

The other members of the cast also do what they can with short rations. In addition to Mr. Baldwin, those who manage to look more important than the radar, sonar and computer screens include Scott Glenn, James Earl Jones, Richard Jordan and Tim Curry.

''The Hunt for Red October,'' which has been rated PG (''Parental Guidance Suggested''), includes some mildly vulgar language.

Underwater Prey

THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, directed by John McTiernan; screenplay by Larry Ferguson and Donald Stewart, based on the novel by Tom Clancy; director of photography, Jan De Bont; edited by Dennis Virkler and John Wright; music by Basil Poledouris; production designer, Terence Marsh; produced by Mace Neufeld; released by Paramount Pictures. Running time: 120 minutes. This film is rated PG.

Marko Ramius ... Sean Connery

Jack Ryan ... Alec Baldwin

Bart Mancuso ... Scott Glenn

Captain Borodin ... Sam Neill

Admiral Greer ... James Earl Jones

Andrei Lysenko ... Joss Ackland

Jeffrey Pelt ... Richard Jordan

Dr. Petrov ... Tim Curry

Ivan Putin ... Peter Firth

Cast & crew
User reviews

The Hunt for Red October

In November 1984, the Soviet Union's best submarine captain violates orders and heads for the U.S. in a new undetectable sub. The American CIA and military must quickly determine: Is he tryi... Read all In November 1984, the Soviet Union's best submarine captain violates orders and heads for the U.S. in a new undetectable sub. The American CIA and military must quickly determine: Is he trying to defect or to start a war? In November 1984, the Soviet Union's best submarine captain violates orders and heads for the U.S. in a new undetectable sub. The American CIA and military must quickly determine: Is he trying to defect or to start a war?

John McTiernan
Larry Ferguson
Donald E. Stewart
Sean Connery
Alec Baldwin
Scott Glenn
376 User reviews
92 Critic reviews
58 Metascore
3 wins & 8 nominations total

Marko Ramius

Bart Mancuso

Captain Borodin

Admiral Greer

Andrei Lysenko

Jeffrey Pelt

Seaman Jones

Captain Tupolev

Bill Steiner
Chief of the Boat

Admiral Painter
(as Fred Dalton Thompson)

Captain Davenport

Seaman Beaumont - USS Dallas
Lt. Comm. Thompson - USS Dallas
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

Trivia Sir Sean Connery spent time underway aboard the U.S.S. Puffer (S.S.N. 652) preparing for his role. He was given Commander status, and allowed to give commands while underway (with the Captain beside him).
Goofs When Ramius asks Ryan (in Russian) "You speak Russian?", the Russian line that Sean Connery actually says is "Govaryu po russki?" This means, "I speak Russian?", and is also grammatically incorrect as a question. The correct line should have been like "Vy govarite po russki?"

Jeffrey Pelt : Listen, I'm a politician, which means I'm a cheat and a liar, and when I'm not kissing babies, I'm stealing their lollipops. But it also means I keep my options open.

Crazy credits Stanley (Sally Ryan's stuffed bear) is credited as "Himself"
Alternate versions SPOILER: In its original theatrical run, Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) says "A fucking cook!" upon discovering the saboteur. However, on subsequent home video releases, the word "fucking" is replaced by "Goddamn." "Goddamn" is heard in at least some 35mm prints.
Connections Edited into JAG: Silent Service (1999)
Soundtracks The Anthem of the Soviet Union Music by Aleksandr Aleksandrov (as A.V. Aleksandrov) Lyrics by Gabriel Ureklyan (as G.A. El-Reghistan) and Sergey Mikhalkov (as S.V. Mikhalkov)

User reviews 376

TheLittleSongbird
Feb 6, 2009
How long is The Hunt for Red October? Powered by Alexa
What is 'The Hunt for Red October' about?
Is 'The Hunt for Red October' based on a book?
Who is Yuri Gagarin, the person Ramius refers to when reading the substituted orders to the crew?
March 2, 1990 (United States)
United States
Jagd auf Roter Oktober
Lake James, Burke County, North Carolina, USA (Final scene with Ryan and Ramius.)
Paramount Pictures
Mace Neufeld Productions
Nina Saxon Film Design
See more company credits at IMDbPro
$30,000,000 (estimated)
$122,012,643
$17,161,835
Mar 4, 1990
$200,512,643

Technical specs

Runtime 2 hours 15 minutes

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The Hunt for Red October Review

01 Jan 1990

134 minutes

Hunt for Red October, The

Now that Soviets are so hip and lovable, and Hollywood is falling embarrassingly behind international relations, this submarine thriller may be one of the last of an endangered species: the Cold War cloak-and-dagger drama. The get-out in Hunt, though, is an intro fixing the Tom Clancy tale back in 1984, so the Muscovites can still be shifty adversaries.

Raimus’ actions send them apeshit at the Kremlin, and the entire Red Navy is sent to pursue and destroy him and the Red October. Over in D.C. the defence brains can't help but notice scads of Russian subs heading their way in some haste, and deduce it would be sensible to get their own mitts on the secret sub.

So far, so-so. One mystery kept going rather well is just what the captain really is up to. He might be nuts, he might be defecting, he might be pretending to be defecting because he really is nuts, and round it goes.

Alas, there are mighty gaffes here that sink a promising idea. The first is the failure of screenwriters, director and cast to get to grips with language. Ostensibly they opted for the conventional: Yanks play Yanks and Brits play the Russkies, mainly as nitwits. But in the opening sequences Captain Sean Connery, First Officer Sam Neill and KGB clown Peter Firth manfully tackle Russian. This sets a catastrophically hilarious tone, when long, painfully delivered lines you think must be quite profound are rendered into subtitles like "It is time". "Yes, it is time". Mercifully the Russian dissolves into English (or Scottish as the case most certainly is with you-know-who) except when the crew bursts into song.

Credulity is scuttled on terra firma as well, thanks to outrageous over-exposition. Alec Baldwin's fresh-faced CIA naval intelligence analyst Jack Ryan, for example, is allegedly so attuned to Ramius' mind he's practically psychic, predicting the Cyaptyin's every underwater move. He addresses himself in the mirror while shaving "Now, what's he going to do. . . ? What would I do. . . ?" Quick cut to him bursting into the admiral's office yelling "I know what he's going to do!"

Baldwin, while quite a dish, and Connery, while we all love him, haven't a chance of recovering the first 90 minutes from such absurdity. Finally, in the last 40 minutes, it picks up some steam and we get what we came for: air-sea stunts, underwater effects, hunters closing in on the prey, a saboteur doing his stuff, lethal weapons and a few twisteroos. The trick is to still be awake to enjoy them.

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The Star of 'The Hunt for Red October' Isn't Jack Ryan; It's Submarine Warfare

We should have had a franchise of amazing submarine movies.

The Hunt for Red October is the first Jack Ryan movie, which starred Alec Baldwin as Tom Clancy 's famous character. Harrison Ford took over the role for two sequels, Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger , before it moved to Ben Affleck for The Sum of All Fears . Paramount then attempted a reboot with Chris Pine and Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit before moving the character to television with the Amazon series Jack Ryan starring John Krasinski . This is all pretty surprising when you consider that Jack Ryan is a pretty dull, uninteresting character who consciously avoids being in the middle of the action. Only Hunt for Red October seems to really understand that because the star of the film isn't Ryan or even Sean Connery 's submarine captain Marko Ramius. It's the art of submarine warfare.

For those who haven't seen John McTiernan 's classic thriller, which turns 30 this year and is available on 4K starting today, the plot concerns Ramius and his submarine, the Red October. The Red October has a new propulsion system that allows it to run virtually silent, which is deeply concerning for Americans since the submarine could drive right up to the US coast and fire nuclear missiles. However, Ramius' plan isn't to attack, but to defect, and CIA analyst Ryan has figured it out. The plot is about how everyone can try to maneuver around Cold War tensions so that Ramius can defect without setting off World War III.

On the one hand, Hunt for Red October is probably the best depiction of Ryan since it understands him in the John McClane mold of everyman who doesn't want to be a hero. Ryan doesn't set out to be in the middle of the action; he intends to just relay information, but his superiors put him in the fray until he decides that he must participate to save the world from a nuclear crisis. The problem with the other Jack Ryan adaptations is that they either fail to give him a proper counterbalance (Sean Miller in Patriot Games is no Marko Ramius), have him overshadowed by a more interesting, active character like John Clark, or lean away from the analyst bit to make him more generic military-style hero.

The Hunt for Red October is able to take the strain off the thin Ryan character by giving equal weight to not only Ramius, but the whole ensemble. Red October has a deep bench with Sam Neill , Scott Glenn , Courtney B. Vance , Tim Curry , Fred Thompson , and James Earl Jones all giving great supporting performances. You feel the full weight of the conflict rather than Ryan trying to carry it all on his shoulders. Furthermore, with this many players, it lends more credence to the stakes. This rich cast of characters is able to bring their own skills to the table so that while Ryan may be the guy who connects the dots, you still need Vance's radio tech to discover the Red October or Glenn's sure-handed captaining when torpedoes have been fired.

Of course, studio franchises being they are, Paramount was always going to seize on the Ryan character because that's where the source material is. There's a whole "Ryanverse" that can be mined for material, and it is still is. In addition to the Jack Ryan TV series, later this year we'll get Michael B. Jordan in John Clark's origin story, Without Remorse . But when you look at The Hunt for Red October , you don't think, "Ah, I need more movies with this Ryan character." You think, "We need more submarine movies like this that feel realistic while sacrificing none of the action-thriller plot beats of the modern blockbuster."

Sadly, that magical formula is a lot harder to emulate, and that's a shame. The submarine movie remains a rare beast, and to be fair, it's tough to do it better than what McTiernan accomplished with his 1990 movie. Watching the new 4K, which looks terrific and really shows off Jan de Bont 's impressive cinematography, you see that the director, who was coming off Predator and Die Hard , is still at the top of his game by never losing the geography of the submarine standoffs. Dennis Virkler and John Wright 's editing deserves special attention for how they move between so many settings—US submarines, Russian submarines, command centers, etc.—while avoiding confusion. If you ever wanted to get someone into submarine movies, The Hunt for Red October is pretty strong place to start.

While the Jack Ryan character has a long and industrious career that doesn't seem likely to end any time soon (a third season of the Amazon series is already on the way), the legacy of The Hunt for Red October shows that the film's strongest asset isn't the wily analyst but the specific adventure he goes on in his debut picture. Maybe if Amazon is feeling bold they'll stick John Krasinski in a metal tube underwater and go from there.

The Hunt for Red October is now available on 4K Blu-ray.

clock This article was published more than 39 years ago

‘The Hunt for Red October’: The Washington Post’s original review from 1984

Underneath the freezing seas of the North Atlantic, a giant Soviet submarine, the 30,000-ton Red October, many times larger than any American sub, glides through the deep. Armed with 26 solid- fuel missiles (each with eight 500-kiloton nuclear warheads) she is headed for the East Coast of the United States. In hot pursuit are 30 surface ships and 58 other submarines — the entire Soviet Northern Fleet.

So begins Tom Clancy’s breathlessly exciting submarine novel, “The Hunt for Red October.” It may be the most satisfactory novel of a sea chase since C.S. Forester perfected the form.

Its startling premise is that the Red October’s skipper, Captain First Rank Marko Ramius, wants to defect to the West, taking his ship with him. That is why the Russians are chasing one of their own. Thanks to a spy, the U.S. Navy knows Ramius’ intent. At the Pentagon they salivate at the chance to dismantle an intact Russian submarine of the latest design. But neither Ramius nor the Russians know our side knows. So the U.S. Navy must deploy to meet the Soviet fleet’s appearance in force, while at the same time it attempts to track down the Red October, establish communication with Ramius, and escort his ship to a concealed anchorage.

The scene of the action shifts rapidly, from Moscow to Washington, from Murmansk to Norfolk, from ship to ship, and back again, the tension constantly building with gratifying unpredictability.

For a landsman, Clancy marvelously evokes the cramped quarters and high morale of submarine duty. Many of his good guys are aboard the U.S.S. Dallas, an attack submarine on “Toll Booth” station, near the treacherous undersea trough off Iceland where Russian subs habitually disgorge into the Atlantic. Here Sonarman Second Class Ronald Jones stands sentinel over his listening equipment. (Off duty Jones plays tapes of Bach: this is the new Navy.) The Dallas carries a chain of passive sensors which extend 200 feet down both sides of her hull, “a mechanical analog to the sensory organs on the body of a shark.” From them, Jones picks up a strange sound, a “sort of swish.” It is the Red October hurtling into harm’s way.

Who will catch the quarry first, the Russians or the Americans? The double hunt climaxes in a series of lethal encounters as the NATO and Soviet navies converge and the world teeters on the edge of Doomsday. An attractive cast of strong characters — CIA spooks, political commissars, old sea dogs and young sailors — lends credence to the elegant plot.

Clancy’s strong suit is his facile handling of the gadgetry of modern weapons systems. Readers who don’t know the difference between Tomahawk or Harpoon missiles will lap up his depiction of a hide-and-seek world, one where killer submarines shadow missile-firing submarines above an ocean floor alive with electronic sensors flashing data to ultra-high- speed computers.

Clancy’s revels in the high technology of the arms race never bore. His chilling description of what happens when a nuclear reactor melts down, condemning a submarine crew to not quite instant and horrible death, will cause armchair admirals to shudder. The metallurgical properties of submarine hulls, ultra-low-frequency radio — all is grist for the author’s mill. Here he discusses propeller cavitation:

“When you have a propeller turning in the water at high speed, you develop an area of low pressure behind the trailing edge of the blade. This can cause water to vaporize. This creates a bunch of little bubbles. They can’t last long under the water pressure, and when they collapse the water rushes forward to pound against the blades. That does three things. First it makes noise, and us sub drivers hate noise. Second, it can cause vibration, something else we don’t like. The old passenger liners, for example, used to flutter several inches at the stern. . . . Third, it tears up the screws . . . “

This is engaging stuff, and just as we used to rejoice in C.S. Forester’s technical descriptions of 200 tars scaling the rigging of a man-of-war to shorten sail, so we warm to Clancy’s deft handling of modern naval armament. Red October makes the pigboat of the motion picture “Das Boot” look like a Model T.

No doubt some persons will deplore Clancy’s enthusiasm for the superpowers’ game of high-tech chicken in Davy Jones’ locker. All that is another argument: “The Hunt for Red October” is a tremendously enjoyable and gripping novel of naval derring-do. Evidently submariners mean it when they say, “There are only two kinds of ships — submarines and targets.”

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Musings on space travel, science fiction, and the radiant future

Film Review – The Hunt for Red October (1990)

I know what you’re thinking— The Hunt for Red October isn’t even sci-fi or alternate history, so why am I reviewing it? I could make the (weak) argument that it is alternate history, as a 1990 film depicting events in 1984 that did not really take place. I could also say that the movie is science fiction, because its plot hinges on the development of a fictional submarine propulsion system. But what I’ll actually say is that I’m just flat-out going off the rails. There are just too many interesting things to write about that fall outside of my self-imposed restrictions, so I am relaxing those restrictions—and the result is that today you’ll see me gush over a film even more awesome than last week’s 1 .

First, some background. The Hunt for Red October was originally a 1984 novel by Tom Clancy, and the smash hit that launched him on his way from insurance agent to eventual head of a multimedia technothriller empire. Ronald Reagan himself read and recommended it. How many debut novels are glowingly reviewed by the sitting President of the United States? So Red October was a big deal in the 1980s, brilliantly capturing the spirit of the Cold War’s final, intense decade. I read it, myself, one summer long ago at my grandfather’s house, and was thoroughly entranced by Clancy’s mastery 2 of technical details; he didn’t quite invent the technothriller, but he definitely shaped and popularized that subgenre in a profound way.

The premise is elegantly creative. Marko Ramius, the Soviet Navy’s most legendary submarine skipper, has grown dissatisfied with the communist system, and hatched a plot with his officers to sail the new ballistic missile boat Red October to the United States. The Americans, however, are not privy to this information. All they see is the entire Red Fleet scrambling for war, trying to catch a rogue sub which just happens to be equipped with a silent drive and hundreds of nuclear warheads. So the race is on—will the Soviets sink the Red October on its voyage to freedom, or will a plucky CIA analyst, Jack Ryan, prove to the nervous Navy brass that Ramius really intends to defect?

The film adaptation was directed by John McTiernan, of Predator and Die Hard fame, and released in March 1990—months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, at a time when the Soviet Communist Party was losing control over its constituent republics and its own government. It was abundantly clear to everyone that communism was on its way out, which cast some doubt on a Cold War movie that was at first meant to be contemporary 3 . This led to an interesting change during post-production: it became a period piece, with a new opening text crawl specifying that the film took place in November 1984, conveniently just before Gorbachev took power. Thus the producers could justify an all-out military bonanza, featuring hard-edged American servicemen squaring off against communist apparatchiks and their vast war machine.

The adaptation’s plot remains relatively faithful to the book. I’ll avoid summary—you can find plenty of that on Wikipedia—but it delivers multiple intertwined threads, following Ramius, who navigates the Red October across a perilous North Atlantic; Ryan, who attempts to prove that Ramius intends defection rather than a nuclear first strike; and the crew of the attack sub USS Dallas , who are the Navy’s eyes and ears beneath the ocean. Smaller threads feature the Soviet ambassador and a Red Navy submarine captain assigned to sink the Red October . For a two-hour film, there’s a lot going on—yet the story’s twists and turns are conveyed with acrobatic grace, expertly balancing exposition with action, quiet scenes with exciting ones, until everything culminates in a breathtaking submarine battle in the Laurentian Abyss.

Naturally for a thriller, a lot of the tension in this film revolves around secrecy. Beyond the task of keeping his submarine hidden, Captain Ramius is in fact undertaking multiple deceptions, especially against his own crew. As far as they know he remains loyal to the Soviet Union and is taking the Red October on a training cruise to Havana. Only Ramius’ officers, a circle of loyal protégés handpicked for this mission, are in on the treasonous secret—and as their voyage becomes progressively more desperate, it becomes harder and harder to conceal what is really going on. It’s a testament to the quality of the writing that some of the best scenes take place in the officers’ wardroom and Ramius’ cabin, not just on the command center while torpedoes are zipping around.

Here, actors are the secret ingredient that propels a good script into the territory of greatness, populating the movie with memorable characters and eminently quotable lines. It helps that many of them are Hollywood A-listers. Sean Connery makes for a convincing Captain Ramius, though with his ever-present Scottish accent he doesn’t make for a convincing Russian (well, Lithuanian, technically). Alec Baldwin’s Jack Ryan 5 comes off as very reluctant to leave a cozy CIA office and do dangerous field work, though he definitely grows into the role, steering a full-scale submarine and getting into a gunfight before the movie is out. We also have the ever-entertaining Tim Curry as the Red October ‘s doctor, James Earl Jones as Ryan’s CIA superior, plus a cameo appearance from Gates McFadden of Star Trek fame; my favorite supporting character, however, is Ramius’ second-in-command, Vasily Borodin, played with quiet charisma by Sam Neill (the lead man in another great ’90s movie , and an absolute delight in every performance).

The other stars of the show are the submarines, of course. We get to see three of the late Cold War’s most famous subs—on the American side, the stately Los Angeles , and on the Soviet side, the lumbering Typhoon -class ballistic missile boat as well as the sleek, breathtakingly fast Alfa class. Numerous exterior shots show them as vast, dark forms plowing through the ocean murk, like metal whales. Internally, they are cramped and claustrophobic, bedecked with instrumentation on every surface, utterly believable as machines of war—even though the producers had to invent most of the details, nobody having ever seen the inside of a Soviet submarine.

In visual terms alone, The Hunt for Red October is a triumph. This film is blessed with a lavish budget, cooperation from the US Navy 6 , and a director who knew exactly how to capture the tension and claustrophobia of submarine life, resulting in a veritable feast for the eyes. But it sounds just as great as it looks—the score by composer Basil Poledouris is one of the most memorable things about the movie. The man did countless other legendary soundtracks, from Robocop to Conan the Barbarian to Starship Troopers , and this is still his standout work, incorporating haunting choral pieces that elevate already great scenes to new heights.

But as much as I’ve been praising this movie, I have to admit a handful of weaknesses. Despite stellar production values, there are a couple of technical goofs—a crashing F-14 transmutes into a Korean War-era F-9, which is impressive alchemy if I ever saw it—and aspects of the plot strain credulity—in one scene a fast, noisy submarine shows up out of nowhere when it should have been spotted miles away, while in another, the writers seem to subscribe to the theory that nuclear warheads explode when you hit them 7 . But those are minor quibbles. You know it’s a good film when you have to wrack your brain for things to complain about.

My largest problem is that it could have done more to engage with its Cold War setting. In particular, Ramius’ exact reasons for defecting are left unclear—it’s hinted that he was trying to prevent a Soviet first strike—and there’s fairly little examination of the Soviet system, which is here conveyed through the tropes most recognizable to Reagan-era Americans: hammers and sickles everywhere, an ossified Party elite, a sycophantic political officer keeping tabs on the military. I wouldn’t necessarily have expected anything deeper from a 1990s Hollywood blockbuster, but it still strikes me as a missed opportunity to look thoughtfully across the Iron Curtain.

So—this is the part of the review where I try to sum up my thoughts. Never any easy task, but I’ll take a crack at it.

Do I think the film surpassed the book? I’m sure of it. Clancy’s work doesn’t exude excellence from every pore, the same way its adaptation does—decent prose can’t compete with great actors and a legendary soundtrack. I would put The Hunt for Red October alongside The Godfather and (controversially) Starship Troopers , two other works that turned iffy source material into a spectacle on the big screen. Not coincidentally, Red October , The Godfather , and Starship Troopers are high on my nebulous list of favorite movies, alongside a few others you may have seen on this blog.

For anyone who wants a good submarine movie, a good technothriller, or even just a good adventure, The Hunt for Red October is an excellent choice. It’s immersive from start to finish; if you happen to be watching for the first time, you should expect a captivating, unpredictable roller coaster of a plot, too. The whole thing is perfectly cast, brilliantly produced, highly recommended—and now that I’ve depleted my stock of superlatives, I will simply leave you with my final score:

Rating: 10/10.

My Star Trek VI review, besides just mentioning The Hunt for Red October , actually inspired me to go ahead and write today’s post.
Tom Clancy was a decent writer, well-suited to the technothriller genre even if he didn’t have any particular talents with regard to characterization and subtlety. However, the “Tom Clancy” brand is no symbol of quality .
Here’s an archived Entertainment Weekly article, from shortly before the film’s release: https://ew.com/article/1990/03/02/how-will-hunt-red-october-fare/ .
The movie portrays the magnetohydrodynamic drive—an underwater jet engine, of sorts, which really exists —as an unstoppable stealth technology that can hide the Red October from passive sonar detection. In reality it would still be quite noisy. Submarines generate a lot of noise from their propellers, which the jet drive would eliminate, but nuclear reactor pumps are even louder . The stealthiest subs are actually “primitive” diesel craft operating on battery power.
Jack Ryan has been portrayed by many actors, most recently Chris Pine and John Krasinski, but Baldwin’s version was my favorite.
We see plenty of Navy ships, helicopters, and extras—including the USS Blueback , which I had the privilege of touring at OMSI as a child. The military has a long tradition of backing military-themed movies, and Red October is no exception.
In reality, blowing up a warhead will just scatter pieces of warhead everywhere. It takes a very specific set of conditions to set off a chain fission reaction, and if you damage the detonation mechanism, you will almost certainly prevent that from happening.

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The Hunt for Red October

Dove review.

Captain Marko Ramius of the submarine Red October has a plan and the plot of the movie circles around his intentions. Does he plan to defect from the then-Soviet Union to the United States, or does he plan to get close enough to the U.S. in order to deploy missiles at the country?

The movie has a bit of a James Bond feel to it and interestingly enough, Sean Connery plays Captain Ramius. Alec Baldwin plays Jack Ryan, the only man who seems to believe that Ramius truly intends to defect to the United States. With a saboteur on board the Red October, the plot climaxes with a revelation of intent and some great action sequences. However, the movie is peppered with strong language, and we cannot award our Dove “Family-Approved” Seal to this film.

Dove Rating Details

Several men are shot and killed; one character's neck is broken; torpedo attacks;

GD-6; J-5; Chr*st-2; G/OMG-4; Mother of God-1; H-17; A-3; SOB-2; D-5; S-1; P-1; B-1; Bu*t-1; Puke-1; A comment about the sound of whales humping.

Smoking and drinking.

Shirtless man.

The topic of betrayal and the theme of corrupt governments is included.

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Film information, dove content.

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The Hunt For Red October – Book and Movie Review

The Hunt For Red October , written by Tom Clancy and published in 1984, was a huge commercial and critical success. Critics often mention it as one of the best spy novels of all time. The novel was also the basis for a successful movie starring Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin.

The Hunt For Red October: Title

The title uses a classic title archetype, the Prize, the Soviets and Americans both want to possess the submarine Red October and its revolutionary new stealth drive.

(For more on titles, see How to Choose a Title For Your Novel )

The Hunt For Red October: Logline

When a revolutionary new soviet submarine tries to defect to the USA, the Russians chase it across the Atlantic with everything they have. A CIA analyst who suspects the submarine captain’s true motives has to come up with a plan to guide the rogue submarine to safety.

(For more on loglines, see The Killogator Logline Formula )

The Hunt For Red October: Plot Summary

Warning: My plot summaries contain spoilers The major spoilers are blacked out like this [blackout]secret[/blackout]. To view them, just select/highlight them.

It’s 1984. After the death of his wife, Marko Ramius, one of the Soviet Navy’s best submarine captains, decides to defect to the United States in a revolutionary stealth submarine, Red October. The submarine’s officers are in on the plan but the crew are told they are carrying out a wargame where the Soviet Navy will attempt to locate them.

When the Soviet Navy’s leaders receive a letter from Ramius telling them he’s defecting, they immediately send the entire Soviet Northern Fleet to sea with orders to sink the Red October at all costs.

The sudden sortie of the Northern Fleet unnerves the US Navy, which starts making preparations for war. Meanwhile, Jack Ryan, a CIA analyst, learns of Ramius’s letter and the sortie of the Northern Fleet. Ryan guesses Ramius is planning to defect and convinces the CIA that the revolutionary submarine is a prize worth risking a lot for. The CIA assigns him to help Ramius escape.

Escape Plan

Ryan gets in contact with Ramius and they arrange a fake reactor meltdown in the Red October forcing the enlisted crew to abandon ship. When the crew evacuate the submarine, Ramius and the other officers stay behind, claiming they are going to scuttle the Red October so it doesn’t fall into American hands. Ryan arranges for an obsolete US submarine, to be blown up at the location to add to the deception.

Ryan boards the Red October and meets Ramius. They realise that there is a KGB agent on the submarine. The KGB agent wounds Ramius and tries to sink Red October by igniting a missile inside her, but Ryan kills him before he can complete his plan.

A final [blackout]Soviet attack submarine discovers the Red October, realises the deception and attacks. The attack submarine damages the Red October but the Red October finally rams it and it sinks.[/blackout]

With the last [blackout]Soviet submarine sunk, the Americans escort Ramius and the Red October to safely in the USA. The crew return to the Soviet Union reporting that the submarine sank. [/blackout]

(For more on summarising stories, see How to Write a Novel Synopsis )

The Hunt For Red October: Analysis

Typhoon Class Submarine like the one in The Hunt For Red October

The Hunt For Red October has dual protagonists – Jack Ryan and Marko Ramius. This gives it a relatively unusual Hybrid plot (see spy novel plots ).

Ramius is On The Run (in particular the sub-type of the On The Run plot called a Straight Run) – trying to defect with his submarine.

The ‘Straight Run’ Plot The Protagonist: Is involved in an Inciting Incident with a group of Antagonists. Realises they are not safe from the Antagonists. Is also not safe from the authorities, as they are tricked or controlled by the Antagonists. Goes on the run, pursued by both the Antagonists and the authorities. Involves one or more Allies in their escape (Optionally, there is a romance sub-plot with one of the Allies). Narrowly avoids capture and death (or is captured and escapes) by both the Antagonists and the authorities. Persuades the authorities they should work together to stop the Antagonists. Confronts the Antagonists and stops (or fails to stop) them.

Ryan has a Mission – to try to help Ramius defect.

The ‘Mission’ Plot The Protagonist: Is given a mission to carry out by their Mentor. Will be opposed by the Antagonist as they try to complete the mission. Makes a plan to complete the Mission. Trains and gathers resources for the Mission. Involves one or more Allies in their Mission (Optionally, there is a romance sub-plot with one of the Allies). Attempts to carry out the Mission, dealing with further Allies and Enemies as they meet them. Is betrayed by an Ally or the Mentor (optionally). Narrowly avoids capture by the Antagonist (or is captured and escapes). Has a final confrontation with the Antagonist and completes (or fails to complete) the Mission.

The two protagonists come together towards the end of the novel in a last confrontation with the antagonists (the Soviets).

Like Alistair Maclean, Tom Clancy is not an author for whom character study is important. With the focus on technology and the details of warfare, Clancy makes use of a large cast of faceless naval officers doing their jobs. All the American and British characters are pretty generic ‘good guys’ who work together with little conflict. In some ways this is realistic—real military operations do include many people working together relatively smoothly.

Of the two main characters, Ramius is the one who is somewhat interesting. Ryan himself is an old-fashioned nice guy hero, with very little depth and no characterisation other than being quick-witted and straight-talking. The loss of his wife and a growing hatred of the Soviet system motivates Ramius though. He also murders the Red October’s political officer, who is just doing his job, which shows a ruthless streak.

Technothriller

The Hunt for Red October popularised the technothriller genre. Though books like Firefox had a similar focus on sophisticated technology, Clancy presented facts in such minute detail in The Hunt for Red October that critics described it as “containing as much technical information about submarines and undersea warfare as a Naval Academy textbook.”

But even the author of a technothriller must use artistic licence, if only because many details are secret. Clancy’s technique in this case, which he called ‘joining the dots’, involved extrapolating from publicly available sources of information. This lead to his being contacted by the FBI, who believed he must have received classified information, causing Clancy some amusement. He stated, in a New York Times interview that: “I’ve made up stuff that’s turned out to be real, that’s the spooky part”.

Reality: Soviet Naval Defections Tom Clancy very loosely based The Hunt For Red October on two real-life incidents. The first was a Soviet submarine tender captain who sailed his barge to Sweden and defected, possibly with some help from the CIA. The second was a 1975 mutiny aboard the Soviet frigate Storozhevoy , whose political officer seized control of the ship and tried to sail to Leningrad, and launch a new revolution. The Soviet Navy hunted the Storozhevoy down and recaptured it. They shot the mutiny’s ring leader and sent his second in command to prison for eight years.

The Hunt For Red October: My Verdict

The archetypal technothriller. A must read.

The Hunt For Red October: The Movie

Sean Connery in The Hunt For Red October

The Hunt For Red October was filmed in 1990. The movie starred Sean Connery as Ramius and Alec Baldwin as Ryan. The movie, which follows the plot of the novel faithfully, with a few exceptions, is pretty good, but nowhere near as good as the novel. Sean Connery makes a good Ramius though and a couple of the scenes, such as the Red October’s crew singing the Soviet national anthem , are great.

The Hunt For Red October: The Game

Games companies released three video games based on The Hunt For Red October in the eighties and nineties, but they’re obsolete now.

More interesting is the board game, which is really a naval wargame with the Soviet Navy fighting against the US Navy and its NATO allies.

The board is a map of the North Atlantic and Arctic, and there are eight scenarios, the hunt for the Red October itself , and various WW3 scenarios, such as escorting a convoy from the USA to Europe. It’s a fun game with relatively simple rules, so if you like board wargames with lots of counters and dice rolling you’ll probably enjoy it. It’s easy enough to find on eBay if you want to get hold of it. There’s also a companion game based on Clancy’s speculative war novel Red Storm Rising, and if you want to play the whole of an imaginary 1980s WW3, you can combine the two games.

The ‘Ryanverse’: Sequels to The Hunt For Red October

So far there have been over a dozen novels featuring Jack Ryan, mostly sequels, but also some prequels. Jack Ryan rises to Deputy Director of the CIA, joins the government as National Security Advisor, becomes Vice President and eventually becomes President of the USA. As Ryan moves into politics, the novels become a vehicle for Clancy’s paleoconservative political views, and the quality drops precipitously. I don’t feel I can recommend them.

However, ‘Tom Clancy’ remains very popular. His name has become a brand used on many inferior technothriller novels, not actually written by Clancy. Clancy himself died in 2013, but novels and games with his name on continue to be published.

Want to Read or Watch It?

Here’s the trailer:

The Hunt For Red October novel is available on Amazon US here and Amazon UK here .

The Hunt For Red October movie is available on Amazon US here and Amazon UK here .

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The Hunt for Red October

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

This just in: some audience members at the film version of Tom Clancy’s best-selling submarine saga The Hunt for Red October have been spotted listing in their seats, their eyes dull and glazed. The experts are confounded. The movie boasts a major star ( Sean Connery ), a stalwart young contender ( Alec Baldwin ) and the best production $50 million can buy. And John McTiernan, the anything-for-a-jolt director of Die Hard, is at the helm. So how does a book that has readers checking their pulses become a movie that has audiences checking their watches? Thereby hangs a tale.

As right-wing, redbaiting, kick-ass techno-thrillers go, you can’t do better than Clancy’s Hunt. Set on a 30,000-ton Soviet Typhoon submarine whose renegade captain is barreling west either to defect or to nuke the U.S. imperialists, the book is crammed with facts. The sub, called the Red October after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, carries twenty-six SS-N-20 Seahawk missiles, each with eight 500-kiloton multiple independently target-able reentry vehicles (MIRVs) — enough to destroy 200 cities. And its silent propulsion system makes detection almost impossible.

That kind of detail caused a sensation when the book, which has sold 6 million copies, was published in 1984. “Who declassified this thing?” said the former navy secretary John Lehman. Nobody, as it turned out. Clancy, now forty-three, never served in the military; myopia washed him out of the ROTC at Maryland’s Loyola College. He wrote Hunt, his first novel, to escape from selling insurance and improve life for his wife and kids. A gadget freak and an avid reader of military history, Clancy interviewed submariners and drew on public records.

President Reagan, a fan of authors who know an evil empire when they see one, called Hunt “the perfect yarn.” Adding four more hot books to his résumé ( Red Storm Rising, Patriot Games , The Cardinal of the Kremlin and Clear and Present Danger ), each with enough flag-waving to shame George M. Cohan, Clancy became a millionaire and the confidant of grateful policy makers who allegedly slip him classified information. “They’re not just novels,” said Dan Quayle of Clancy’s books. “They’re read as the real thing.” With apologies to the VP, most people read Clancy’s books as potboilers. The hardware sounds authentic, but Clancy’s vision of simon-pure American heroes fighting the sneaky red devils occupies the same simplistic realm as John Wayne Westerns and James Bond capers.

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In the film, oddly enough, McTiernan plays against the fantasy and fun. At two hours and fifteen minutes, Hunt has a stately pace more befitting a meditative spy novel by John Le Carré than a rip-snorter by Clancy.

It helps that Sean Connery, as Marko Ramius, the gray-whiskered captain of the Red October, is in vigorous star form. At first he speaks in Russian. Nice touch, until McTiernan fades to English and Connery’s Scottish burr hits the ear like a torpedo. Irish Sam Neill ( A Cry in the Dark ) plays Borodin, Ramius’s executive officer, with a Russian accent, and British Tim Curry ( Legend ) plays Petrov, the sub’s doctor, with a British accent. The Tower of Babel effect is maddening.

The confusion lingers. Clancy isn’t much at characterization, but he’s a whiz compared with screenwriters Larry Ferguson ( The Presidio ) and Donald Stewart ( Missing ). At least Clancy sketched in Ramius’s motives for revenge on his motherland: His father was a murderous party tool; his wife the tragic victim of Soviet medical incompetence. For background, the film’s writers have Ramius mutter, “I miss the peace of fishing.” And Borodin, one of the officers Ramius selected for their shared hatred of the Soviet Union, tells Ramius he wants to defect so that he can settle in Montana and drive “a recreational vehicle.” The dialogue sounds like something left over from the last Star Trek opus, and it stops the picture cold.

Baldwin, as CIA analyst Jack Ryan, has it worse. Ryan is a bookish ex-marine with a fear of flying, but Clancy emphasized his fierce independence. Married to a wealthy woman, Ryan — in Clancy’s words — “could not be bought, bribed or bullied.” Ryan is a major figure in four of Clancy’s novels. But the Hunt screenplay paints him in lightweight terms as the all-purpose hero. Ryan will interrupt his talks with the CIA director, overblustered by James Earl Jones, to shop for a toy bear for his daughter. He will also have himself dropped from a chopper into freezing waters so that he can swim toward a moving submarine. The scene is visually exciting, but unless you read Clancy, you’ll never guess what drives Ryan to risk his life. Baldwin, a quirky, instinctive actor, gamely fights to fill in the blanks, but the role’s blandness is suffocating.

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Things pick up when the Red October is overtaken by the USS Dallas — a seaman named Jonesie, played by Courtney B. Vance, has discovered how to track the sub. Ryan and the Dallas’ s skipper, Bart Mancuso (Scott Glenn), join Ramius on the Red October just as a Soviet sub, commanded by Tupolev (Stellan Skarsgard), a former student of Ramius’s, is gaining on them. There’s also a saboteur on board to ensure that the miracle sub never falls into American hands. The payoff is electrifying, but McTiernan has wired it with an unconscionably long fuse.

Though Hunt shows fitful signs of life, it lacks the human drama of Das Boot, the technical dazzle of The Abyss and the old-fashioned brio of Run Silent, Run Deep. Even more unsettling, a disclaimer at the start of the film reminds us that the story took place before Gorbachev. Fair enough. But whatever the historical perspective, we’re still watching a better-dead-than-red movie in the era of glasnost and perestroika. Like Top Gun before it, Hunt is tub thumping for a strong defense capability. If the plodding exposition doesn’t get you first, the propaganda will. The only sensible reaction can be summed up in one word: Mayday.

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The Hunt for Red October – 4K UHD Blu-ray Movie Review

A new, technologically superior, nuclear Soviet sub is headed for the east coast of the United States, under the command of Captain Marko Ramius (Connery). The US government thinks Ramius has gone rogue and is willing to start a war, but one CIA analyst (Baldwin) thinks he knows Ramius well enough to guess that his real plan is to defect. He has only a few hours to prove his theory because the entire Russian navy and Air Command are out to destroy Ramius. The hunt is on!

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This is my favorite film of the Jack Ryan series by Tom Clancy. Baldwin plays Ryan with savvy skill, yet also reveals his vulnerable side as an analyst that is not a field operative and is fully aware that if his hunches are wrong, the whole world could pay for that mistake. The movie seems very plausible and the intensity slowly builds to and explosive (literally) conclusion. Connery is just perfect as Ramius, an old school Russian naval commander that has to out wit his countrymen while hoping the Americans don’t blow him out of the water. The story is fast paced and keeps you spell bound to the very end. I promise that you will be gulping for air by the end. Recommended!

Re-mastered from the original print, this is about as good as we are going to get for this movie. Most shots are razor sharp with lots of details, but some scenes are bit too murky with some thick film grain. The HDR and WCG really bring out the submarine’s interior and lights. Skin tones are accurate, and every bead of sweat can be seen on furrowed foreheads. The sound could have been given the Atmos treatment, but it still sounds stellar with surround sounds coming from throughout the subs interior. Explosion are nicely powerful and the underlining deep drone from the ship’s engines will test your subwoofer’s mettle.

A BD copy is included along with: Commentary from the director (UHD) and Beneath the Surface, cast and crew interviews and theatrical trailers on the BD version.

Screen Rant

The hunt for red october: 10 differences between the movie and book.

Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October kickstarted the Jack Ryan franchise — and had a great (if not different) film adaptation starring Sean Connery.

Tom Clancy is one of the most successful thriller writers of all time and his novels have inspired many movies and television shows over the years. But the first and perhaps best of them all is The Hunt for Red October .

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The movie stars Sean Connery as a Russian submarine captain who goes rogue and Alec Baldwin as CIA analyst Jack Ryan who thinks the captain means to defect to America. The novel kickstarted Clancy's Jack Ryan franchise and the movie is regarded as a faithful and effective adaptation. However, there are some interesting differences between the two versions.

Sped-Up Timeline

The most common dilemma faced by adapting a novel into a movie is condensing a story of hundreds of pages in length into a reasonable movie runtime. In many cases, the movie can lose a lot of the nuance of the source material.

In the case of The Hunt for Red October , the sped-up pace actually helps to make it a more entertaining story. The movie trims a lot of the fat of the book without losing too much. For instance, Jack's briefing of the Red October to Greer is changed from multiple chapters spanning several days to a single conversation.

Is Ramius A Villain?

In the opening chapter of the novel, Captain Ramius sets sail with his state-of-the-art submarine. Through his internal monologue, it is made immediately clear that he is no longer loyal to the Soviet Union and plans to defect to America. Jack Ryan figures this out very early on as well.

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In the movie, a lot of the tension comes from the fact that it is unclear if Ramius is a villain at first. It initially appears as though he might be trying to start a nuclear war. This makes Jack's eureka moment all the more thrilling.

Skepticism Of Ramius

In both versions of the story, Captain Ramius is a respected and powerful leader. However, he encounters a lot more trepidation from his crew in the movie than he does in the book. In the movie, the submarine's doctor, Petrov, questions Ramius' decision-making several times as it conflicts with standard procedure. Even more severe, one of his officers begins openly accusing him of losing his mental faculties.

In the book, such questions of Ramius' command do not exist. The crew sees him as a fearless and flawless leader whom they follow without hesitation.

While Jack Ryan is certainly the main hero in the book, there is a secondary hero who makes a strong impression as well. Skip Tyler is a former submarine commander who lost his position after a car accident took one of his legs.

Despite just being a teacher now, Jack trusts him to look over the photos of the Red October and give his assessment. He is the one who comes up with much of the plan for getting the crew and the submarine to America. In the movie, he only appears in a couple of scenes with Jack getting most of the spotlight.

Submarine Disaster

When the Russians learn of Ramius' plan to hand the new submarine over to the Americans, the entire fleet is sent out after him. In the movie, this results in one scene of a bomber attempting to destroy the Red October.

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There is a much more substantial scene in the novel when one of the pursuing vessels runs its engines too hot trying to catch up to Ramius. This results in a meltdown that leaves the whole crew dead save one survivor. It is an exciting sequence but expendable for the movie.

The Motivation Of Ramius

In that first chapter of the book that reveals Ramius' plans to defect to the United States, it is hinted that this is because of the death of his wife. It is later revealed that his wife died at the hands of a drunken surgeon who was not punished because of his political connections.

While this personal reasoning might seem important for making Ramius sympathetic, the movie's motivations for the character are much simpler yet still effective. He recognizes that the Red October is designed to start a nuclear war and is committed to getting it out of Russian hands.

The Russian Mole

The movie does a very good job of determining which storylines add to the main plot and which can be let go. The book introduces a small storyline very late in the book with none of it appearing in the movie at all.

The storyline revolves around a senator's aide who is revealed to be a mole for the Russians. He is arrested and turned so that the Americans will start feeding him false information to communicate to the Russians.

Tension Between Countries

The Cold War story makes for a great structure of a political thriller that delves into the tensions between the United States and Russia. These tensions are surface level in the movie and eventually, the Russians lie to the Americans, saying Ramius is planning to launch his missiles in hopes the Americans will destroy him.

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In the book, the Russians attempt to hide the issue with Ramius from the Americans until the bitter end. However, the tensions between the countries lead to several close calls between the military on several occasions, which cements what is at stake for Ryan's mission.

Sympathetic Borodin

One of the standout characters from the movie is Borodin (Sam Neill) , Ramius' second-in-command. He is the most loyal follower of Ramius and during one touching scene, the two men discuss what they think their lives will be like in America with Borodin stating he wants to live in Montana. This sets up his heartbreaking death when he is shot by a spy and his dying words are, "I would have liked to see Montana."

Not only is Borodin a much less important character in the novel, but he is also not nearly as sympathetic. While Ramius is thinking about his officers and how were mistreated by the Soviet government, it is revealed that Borodin's grievance is that he accused a colleague of being a gay but nothing was done about it.

Showdown With Tupolev

The climactic action sequence in both versions of the story comes when the Red October is found by another Russian sub, making for an intense naval battle . The enemy sub is commanded by one of Ramius's former students, Tupolev.

In the movie, Tupolev is a cold villain whose arrogance causes him to be lured into a trap and blown up with his own torpedo. In the novel, Tupolev is torn between his duty and having to kill Ramius. His sub is destroyed when Ramius rams it with the Red October.

NEXT: The Man With The Golden Gun: 10 Biggest Differences Between The Book & Movie

Hunt for Red October, The (United States, 1990)

The Hunt for Red October has a much different feel from any of the other Jack Ryan films (to date, there have been five plus a web series). Part of this is because, with a seasoned veteran like Sean Connery posed opposite a lesser-known actor (Alec Baldwin), concessions had to be made to enhance Connery’s scenes. Also, John McTiernan’s directorial style is substantially different than those of his successors. McTiernan is a master of escalating tension, although The Hunt for Red October doesn’t show it as well as Die Hard . The movie personalizes the global crisis sufficiently for the audience to have a deeper rooting interest than in whether or not World War III breaks out.

Post-World War II, there have been many movies about submarine warfare. The most successful of these, Wolfgang Petersen’s Das Boot , is an exhausting, white-knuckle affair that set the gold standard for undersea battles. Although there is some sub-to-sub combat in The Hunt for Red October , it’s treated as one of many plot elements and McTiernan doesn’t take the time or effort to set things up the way Petersen did. There’s no sense of claustrophobia and the dangers of suffocation, drowning, or being crushed are minimized. That’s because in every other submarine movie, the fate of the boat is central to the story. In The Hunt for Red October , it’s a secondary concern. This isn’t really a submarine movie; it’s a movie about late-era Cold War political maneuvering.

The story, which is set in 1984 to allow events to transpire before the collapse of the Soviet Union, postulates that the USSR has developed a prototype Typhoon class sub fitted with a new drive that allows it to run silently, making it virtually undetectable and, as such, an obvious first strike weapon. The boat, named Red October , is commanded by respected submarine captain Marko Ramius on its maiden voyage. Unbeknownst to his superiors, Ramius plans to defect and most of the officers on board are co-conspirators. While at sea, Ramius kills the Red October ’s political officer, Ivan Putin (Peter Firth), before engaging the caterpillar drive and causing the sub to “disappear.”

The Hunt for Red October features an A-list (male) cast. The unquestioned “draw” was Connery, who had settled nicely into his post-007 life. Just three years beyond wining an Oscar for The Untouchables , Connery had starred in both Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and The Presidio and had not yet entered the slide that would lead to his quitting the industry in disgust. Even though The Hunt for Red October is now recognized as the first of the “Jack Ryan series,” it is very much Connery’s film. This is especially true because Alec Baldwin, the wet-around-the-ears actor chosen to play Ryan, is neither charismatic nor convincing. Baldwin shows none of the intensity that would define his star-making performances in such films as Prelude to a Kiss and Glengarry Glen Ross . The supporting cast is comprised of veteran characters actors Scott Glenn, Sam Neill (as Ramius’ confidante and second-in-command), James Earl Jones, Richard Jordan (as the American National Security Advisor), Joss Ackland (as a top Soviet diplomat), Tim Curry (as the Red October ’s doctor), Courtney B. Vance (as the Dallas ’ sonar operator), and Stellan Skarsgard (as Captain Tupolev, the commander of another Soviet sub).

Although The Hunt for Red October wasn’t Sean Connery’s final film (he would go on to make more than a dozen other movies before retiring in 2003), it could be considered his last great role (some would argue that was in Finding Forrester ; others might suggest The Rock ). To an extent, The Hunt for Red October was a victim of unfortunate timing. During its initial box office run, the collapse of the Soviet Union robbed it of a sense of immediacy. Nevertheless, the mix of traditional thriller elements, Cold War storytelling, and submarine warfare generate sufficient tension to engage the viewer throughout. Coupled with Connery’s magnetic performance, that’s enough to make The Hunt for Red October as watchable today as it was during its 1990 release.

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20 facts you might not know about 'The Hunt for Red October'

Posted: March 26, 2024 | Last updated: April 19, 2024

<p>Sebastian said everything was better under the sea. That doesn’t seem to be the case in the thriller <em>The Hunt for Red October</em>. The first adaptation of an established book character, the film used a submarine setting to ratchet up the intensity. Audiences responded in kind. Plus, <em>The Hunt for Red October</em> is just a great name for a movie. Let’s dive deep into some trivia about the spy movie.</p>

Sebastian said everything was better under the sea. That doesn’t seem to be the case in the thriller The Hunt for Red October . The first adaptation of an established book character, the film used a submarine setting to ratchet up the intensity. Audiences responded in kind. Plus, The Hunt for Red October is just a great name for a movie. Let’s dive deep into some trivia about the spy movie.

<p><em>The Hunt for Red October</em> is an adaptation of a Tom Clancy novel by the same name. It is the first of many entertainment entities focused on the character of Jack Ryan. However, the CIA analyst character was actually making his debut in the 1984 novel as well, as that was the first published novel for Clancy, who went on to have quite a prolific career.</p><p>You may also like: <a href='https://www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/20_country_artists_you_need_to_watch_in_2024_031524/s1__40031300'>20 country artists you need to watch in 2024</a></p>

The story is a debut in more ways than one

The Hunt for Red October is an adaptation of a Tom Clancy novel by the same name. It is the first of many entertainment entities focused on the character of Jack Ryan. However, the CIA analyst character was actually making his debut in the 1984 novel as well, as that was the first published novel for Clancy, who went on to have quite a prolific career.

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<p>Producer Marc Neufield got the movie rights to Clancy’s novel and began to pitch it around Hollywood. However, although the book had proved successful, he had trouble gaining traction. In short, studios were finding the story too complicated. It took a year and a half until an executive at Paramount read the novel and thus understood the film.</p><p><a href='https://www.msn.com/en-us/community/channel/vid-cj9pqbr0vn9in2b6ddcd8sfgpfq6x6utp44fssrv6mc2gtybw0us'>Follow us on MSN to see more of our exclusive entertainment content.</a></p>

It took a while for a studio to get interested

Producer Marc Neufield got the movie rights to Clancy’s novel and began to pitch it around Hollywood. However, although the book had proved successful, he had trouble gaining traction. In short, studios were finding the story too complicated. It took a year and a half until an executive at Paramount read the novel and thus understood the film.

<p>After selling the script to Paramount, Neufield then began working on the Navy. He hoped to get them on board with the film. A few folks in the Navy were intrigued, thinking the movie could do for submarines what <em>Top Gun</em> did for fighter jets. After suggesting a few changes to put the U.S. Navy in a more positive light, the production got access to a few real naval submarines to use for set and prop design. Some cast members got to go on a real submarine as well.</p><p>You may also like: <a href='https://www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/20_country_artists_you_need_to_watch_in_2024_031924/s1__40031300'>20 country artists you need to watch in 2024</a></p>

They got the Navy involved

After selling the script to Paramount, Neufield then began working on the Navy. He hoped to get them on board with the film. A few folks in the Navy were intrigued, thinking the movie could do for submarines what Top Gun did for fighter jets. After suggesting a few changes to put the U.S. Navy in a more positive light, the production got access to a few real naval submarines to use for set and prop design. Some cast members got to go on a real submarine as well.

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<p>Initially, the producers wanted Kevin Costner to play Ryan. Costner had other plans. He turned them down to make <em>Dances with Wolves</em>, which would win Best Picture and make an indelible mark for Costner in his career. That decision worked out for him.</p><p><a href='https://www.msn.com/en-us/community/channel/vid-cj9pqbr0vn9in2b6ddcd8sfgpfq6x6utp44fssrv6mc2gtybw0us'>Follow us on MSN to see more of our exclusive entertainment content.</a></p>

The first choice for Jack Ryan turned them down

Initially, the producers wanted Kevin Costner to play Ryan. Costner had other plans. He turned them down to make Dances with Wolves , which would win Best Picture and make an indelible mark for Costner in his career. That decision worked out for him.

<p>Alec Baldwin would play Ryan, but he was not next in line after Costner. Instead, they went to Harrison Ford. Ford turned them down, but he would eventually have a change of heart. The actor took over as Ryan for future films starring the character.</p><p>You may also like: <a href='https://www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/20_country_artists_you_need_to_watch_in_2024_032624/s1__40031300'>20 country artists you need to watch in 2024</a></p>

Another choice for the role would take it on eventually

Alec Baldwin would play Ryan, but he was not next in line after Costner. Instead, they went to Harrison Ford. Ford turned them down, but he would eventually have a change of heart. The actor took over as Ryan for future films starring the character.

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<p>At first, the Soviet sub commander Marko Ramius was played by Austrian actor Klaus Maria Brandauer. However, a couple of weeks into production, another commitment came up, and Brandauer dropped out of the movie. Suddenly, a new actor was needed for one of the film’s starring roles.</p><p><a href='https://www.msn.com/en-us/community/channel/vid-cj9pqbr0vn9in2b6ddcd8sfgpfq6x6utp44fssrv6mc2gtybw0us'>Follow us on MSN to see more of our exclusive entertainment content.</a></p>

The first actor cast as Ramius dropped out

At first, the Soviet sub commander Marko Ramius was played by Austrian actor Klaus Maria Brandauer. However, a couple of weeks into production, another commitment came up, and Brandauer dropped out of the movie. Suddenly, a new actor was needed for one of the film’s starring roles.

<p>Connery would end up stepping into the role of Ramius, but a miscommunication initially stood in the way. The actor turned the movie down because he didn’t understand why the Soviet Union was being treated like an emerging naval power in the movie. It turned out he was missing the script's first page, which set the story in 1984.</p><p>You may also like: <a href='https://www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/the_greatest_singing_voices_of_all_time_031524/s1__39115167'>The greatest singing voices of all time</a></p>

A faxing error almost kept Sean Connery out of the film

Connery would end up stepping into the role of Ramius, but a miscommunication initially stood in the way. The actor turned the movie down because he didn’t understand why the Soviet Union was being treated like an emerging naval power in the movie. It turned out he was missing the script's first page, which set the story in 1984.

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<p><em>The Hunt for Red October </em>is credited to Larry Ferguson and Donald E. Stewart. They weren’t the only writers on the film, though. John Milius, who had worked on war films like <em>Apocalypse Now</em> and <em>Red Dawn</em>, was brought in to write some speeches for Connery and some scenes for the Russian characters.</p><p><a href='https://www.msn.com/en-us/community/channel/vid-cj9pqbr0vn9in2b6ddcd8sfgpfq6x6utp44fssrv6mc2gtybw0us'>Follow us on MSN to see more of our exclusive entertainment content.</a></p>

A notable screenwriter worked on the movie

The Hunt for Red October is credited to Larry Ferguson and Donald E. Stewart. They weren’t the only writers on the film, though. John Milius, who had worked on war films like Apocalypse Now and Red Dawn , was brought in to write some speeches for Connery and some scenes for the Russian characters.

<p>John McTiernan was on quite the run in the late ‘80s and the 1990s. He had broken through with <em>Predator</em> in 1987, then in 1988, he directed perhaps the seminal action film of the ‘80s in <em>Die Hard</em>.</p><p>You may also like: <a href='https://www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/the_25_greatest_villain_names_of_all_time_031524/s1__35686598'>The 25 greatest villain names of all time</a></p>

It was directed by an action-movie staple

John McTiernan was on quite the run in the late ‘80s and the 1990s. He had broken through with Predator in 1987, then in 1988, he directed perhaps the seminal action film of the ‘80s in Die Hard .

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<p>Russian characters play a key role in <em>The Hunt for Red October</em>, a Cold War story of the U.S. and Soviet Union. So would the Russian characters speak in Russian? Would they speak in English with Russian accents? They decided to go with an unusual middle ground. At first, the Russian characters speak Russian with English subtitles. Then, Peter Firth’s character says the word “Armageddon,” which is the same in both languages. At that point, he switches to speaking English, and the Russian characters, by and large, speak English from there on out.</p><p><a href='https://www.msn.com/en-us/community/channel/vid-cj9pqbr0vn9in2b6ddcd8sfgpfq6x6utp44fssrv6mc2gtybw0us'>Follow us on MSN to see more of our exclusive entertainment content.</a></p>

They made an interesting linguistic choice

Russian characters play a key role in The Hunt for Red October , a Cold War story of the U.S. and Soviet Union. So would the Russian characters speak in Russian? Would they speak in English with Russian accents? They decided to go with an unusual middle ground. At first, the Russian characters speak Russian with English subtitles. Then, Peter Firth’s character says the word “Armageddon,” which is the same in both languages. At that point, he switches to speaking English, and the Russian characters, by and large, speak English from there on out.

<p>A few actors in this military thriller could have turned to their personal pasts for the film. Connery had been in the Royal Navy, Scott Glenn was in the Marine Corps, and James Earl Jones served in the U.S. Army. Baldwin hadn’t served in the military, but he was trained on how to drive a submarine for the film.</p><p>You may also like: <a href='https://www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/the_25_greatest_english_rock_bands_031524/s1__30317819'>The 25 greatest English rock bands</a></p>

There was some real military experience on set

A few actors in this military thriller could have turned to their personal pasts for the film. Connery had been in the Royal Navy, Scott Glenn was in the Marine Corps, and James Earl Jones served in the U.S. Army. Baldwin hadn’t served in the military, but he was trained on how to drive a submarine for the film.

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<p>The movie was mostly shot on sound stages on the Paramount lot since you can’t shoot a real movie on a submarine. That doesn’t mean actual subs weren’t involved. The USS Houston and its crew spent a month working on the film. They surfaced more than 40 times during shooting, either in rehearsals or for the camera.</p><p><a href='https://www.msn.com/en-us/community/channel/vid-cj9pqbr0vn9in2b6ddcd8sfgpfq6x6utp44fssrv6mc2gtybw0us'>Follow us on MSN to see more of our exclusive entertainment content.</a></p>

A real submarine was used for the film

The movie was mostly shot on sound stages on the Paramount lot since you can’t shoot a real movie on a submarine. That doesn’t mean actual subs weren’t involved. The USS Houston and its crew spent a month working on the film. They surfaced more than 40 times during shooting, either in rehearsals or for the camera.

<p>What do you do when you can’t shoot on a submarine? They built moving sets roughly 45 feet above the floor on hydraulic gimbals that could be used to replicate the movements of a sub. These sets could tilt up to 45 degrees. </p><p>You may also like: <a href='https://www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/all_in_the_family_25_musical_siblings/s1__40066542'>All in the family: 25 musical siblings</a></p>

They built moving sets for the movie

What do you do when you can’t shoot on a submarine? They built moving sets roughly 45 feet above the floor on hydraulic gimbals that could be used to replicate the movements of a sub. These sets could tilt up to 45 degrees.

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<p>When Connery showed up to shoot, he was wearing a hairpiece that had a ponytail element. Connery was a fan and wanted to wear it for the movie, but he was pretty much the only one. McTiernan hated it, and Connery started to get mocked on set. He agreed to nix the ponytail and go with the hairpiece you see in the movie. McTiernan jokingly called it a “$20,000 hairpiece,” not because of the actual cost of the piece but because the change led to reshoots.</p><p><a href='https://www.msn.com/en-us/community/channel/vid-cj9pqbr0vn9in2b6ddcd8sfgpfq6x6utp44fssrv6mc2gtybw0us'>Follow us on MSN to see more of our exclusive entertainment content.</a></p>

Connery brought a hairstyle choice to the film

When Connery showed up to shoot, he was wearing a hairpiece that had a ponytail element. Connery was a fan and wanted to wear it for the movie, but he was pretty much the only one. McTiernan hated it, and Connery started to get mocked on set. He agreed to nix the ponytail and go with the hairpiece you see in the movie. McTiernan jokingly called it a “$20,000 hairpiece,” not because of the actual cost of the piece but because the change led to reshoots.

<p>How do you keep track of the action when the bulk of a movie is set on not one but three submarines? They decided to go a classic route: color coding. The Red October is naturally tinted red. The V.K. Konovalov gets green highlights, while the USS Dallas is blue.</p><p>You may also like: <a href='https://www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/the_25_most_devastating_endings_in_film_history_111323/s1__35694233'>The 25 most devastating endings in film history</a></p>

The subs were color coordinated

How do you keep track of the action when the bulk of a movie is set on not one but three submarines? They decided to go a classic route: color coding. The Red October is naturally tinted red. The V.K. Konovalov gets green highlights, while the USS Dallas is blue.

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<p><em>The Hunt for Red October</em> is a Cold War film — one of the first films released after the end of the Cold War. Just before the movie hit theaters, the Communist Party was ousted from Soviet Parliament, one of the last events of the Cold War. This led to a crawl being added to the beginning of the film that explained the action was set in 1984, making this one of the first throwback Cold War movies.</p><p><a href='https://www.msn.com/en-us/community/channel/vid-cj9pqbr0vn9in2b6ddcd8sfgpfq6x6utp44fssrv6mc2gtybw0us'>Follow us on MSN to see more of our exclusive entertainment content.</a></p>

Real-life events impacted the film

The Hunt for Red October is a Cold War film — one of the first films released after the end of the Cold War. Just before the movie hit theaters, the Communist Party was ousted from Soviet Parliament, one of the last events of the Cold War. This led to a crawl being added to the beginning of the film that explained the action was set in 1984, making this one of the first throwback Cold War movies.

<p>Apparently, people weren’t against the idea of a Cold War movie when <em>The Hunt for Red October</em> was released. It topped the domestic box office for three weeks upon its release. Off of a budget of $30 million, it made $122 million domestically and $200.5 million worldwide.</p><p>You may also like: <a href='https://www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/sitcom_actors_that_became_action_stars_031924/s1__40086394'>Sitcom actors that became action stars</a></p>

The movie struck a chord at the box office

Apparently, people weren’t against the idea of a Cold War movie when The Hunt for Red October was released. It topped the domestic box office for three weeks upon its release. Off of a budget of $30 million, it made $122 million domestically and $200.5 million worldwide.

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<p>The technical aspects of the movie were well appreciated by folks, including the Academy. <em>The Hunt for Red October</em> was nominated for Best Film Editing, Best Sound, and Best Sound Effects Editing. It won for the latter.</p><p><a href='https://www.msn.com/en-us/community/channel/vid-cj9pqbr0vn9in2b6ddcd8sfgpfq6x6utp44fssrv6mc2gtybw0us'>Follow us on MSN to see more of our exclusive entertainment content.</a></p>

It won an Oscar

The technical aspects of the movie were well appreciated by folks, including the Academy. The Hunt for Red October was nominated for Best Film Editing, Best Sound, and Best Sound Effects Editing. It won for the latter.

<p>There have been five movies centered on Clancy’s Jack Ryan character. <em>The Hunt for Red October</em> is the only one that starred Baldwin. Ford took over for <em>Patriot Games</em> and <em>Clear and Present Danger</em>. Ben Affleck would star in <em>The Sum of All Fears</em>. Later, Chris Pine would get a shot in <em>Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit</em>. Funnily enough, Costner pops up in that movie.</p><p>You may also like: <a href='https://www.yardbarker.com/entertainment/articles/the_best_music_videos_released_by_black_artists_in_the_2000s_032524/s1__39530897'>The best music videos released by Black artists in the 2000s</a></p>

The film started a loosely-connected film series

There have been five movies centered on Clancy’s Jack Ryan character. The Hunt for Red October is the only one that starred Baldwin. Ford took over for Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger . Ben Affleck would star in The Sum of All Fears . Later, Chris Pine would get a shot in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit . Funnily enough, Costner pops up in that movie.

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<p><em>The Hunt for Red October</em> is, by and large, a standalone movie, though it ties into the Jack Ryan Universe. Jones's character of Vice Admiral James Greer appears in both of the Ford films, and the actor also reprises the role. He is the only actor from this film to appear in any other Ryan movie.</p><p><a href='https://www.msn.com/en-us/community/channel/vid-cj9pqbr0vn9in2b6ddcd8sfgpfq6x6utp44fssrv6mc2gtybw0us'>Did you enjoy this slideshow? Follow us on MSN to see more of our exclusive entertainment content.</a></p>

Only one actor stayed in the series

The Hunt for Red October is, by and large, a standalone movie, though it ties into the Jack Ryan Universe. Jones's character of Vice Admiral James Greer appears in both of the Ford films, and the actor also reprises the role. He is the only actor from this film to appear in any other Ryan movie.

Did you enjoy this slideshow? Follow us on MSN to see more of our exclusive entertainment content.

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The Hunt for Red October movie review (1990)
And yet that lapse doesn't much matter. "The Hunt for Red October" is a skillful, efficient film that involves us in the clever and deceptive game being played by Ramius and in the best efforts of those on both sides to figure out what he plans to do with his submarine - and how he plans to do it. The movie is constructed so we can figure that ...
The Hunt for Red October
Nov 12, 2022. Rated: 7/10 • Aug 25, 2022. Based on the popular Tom Clancy novel, this suspenseful movie tracks Soviet submarine captain Marko Ramius (Sean Connery) as he abandons his orders and ...
The Hunt for Red October Movie Review
Our review: Parents say ( 2 ): Kids say ( 11 ): THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER keeps tension and suspense front and center. The plot builds nicely, keeping you guessing as it moves quickly along. The tight writing and strong acting make much of essentially watching a chess game in which players try to guess the others' next moves.
The Hunt for Red October
Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 11, 2015. David Sterritt Christian Science Monitor. Like the nuclear submarine it's named after, The Hunt for Red October is big, shiny, and expensive. But ...
The Hunt for Red October (film)
The Hunt for Red October is a 1990 American submarine spy thriller film directed by John McTiernan, produced by Mace Neufeld, and starring Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn, James Earl Jones, and Sam Neill.The film is an adaptation of Tom Clancy's 1984 bestselling novel of the same name.It is the first installment of the film series with the protagonist Jack Ryan.
The Hunt for Red October (1990)
James Earl Jones, Sam Neill and Courtney B Vance are on hand. Based on the 1984 Tom Clancy novel, "The Hunt for Red October" (1990) is a well-done Cold War thriller and the first of currently five movies involving the character of Jack Ryan. The next two are "Patriot Games" (1992) and "Clear and Present Danger" (1994) featuring Harrison Ford in ...
Reviews/Film; Connery as Captain of a Renegade Soviet Sub
John McTiernan's ''Hunt for Red October,'' based on the Tom Clancy suspense novel, begins with a screen note to the effect that the events portrayed took place in November 1984, shortly before ...
The Hunt for Red October (1990)
This movie tells the story of Captain Marko Ramius (Sir Sean Connery), the skipper of the Soviet Union's newest nuclear submarine, the "Red October." Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) of the C.I.A. gets involved in a tense, tangled hunt for this sub, when Ramius defects, taking the "Red October" with him. The story is an action packed techno-thriller.
The Hunt for Red October
A new technologically-superior Soviet nuclear sub, the Red October, is heading for the U.S. coast under the command of Captain Marko Ramius (Connery). The American government thinks Ramius is planning to attack. A lone CIA analyst (Baldwin) has a different idea: he thinks Ramius is planning to defect, but he has only a few hours to find him and prove it-because the entire Russian naval and air ...
The Hunt for Red October Review
Reviews The Hunt for Red October Review The Soviet commander (Connery) of an amazing stealth super-sub, undetectable on sonar, flips his lid at 40,000 fathoms and makes off with the vessel.
Review: The Hunt for Red October
The Hunt for Red October is a thrilling edge-of-your-seat trifle that has admirably withstood the test of time. by Nick Schager. May 29, 2003. Before Ben Affleck and Harrison Ford, Alec Baldwin starred as C.I.A. stud Jack Ryan in John McTiernan's Cold War submarine thriller The Hunt for Red October. The actor's unbridled eagerness oozes out ...
The Hunt for Red October 4K Is Great Even if You Don't Like ...
The Hunt for Red October is the first Jack Ryan movie, which starred Alec Baldwin as Tom Clancy 's famous character. Harrison Ford took over the role for two sequels, Patriot Games and Clear and ...
The Hunt for Red October 4K Blu-ray Review
The 1990 first film in the series, The Hunt for Red October, was shot on good old 35 mm film, and the film has been rescanned and mastered in 4K, which has been used here for this Ultra HD Blu-ray release. The disc presents a native 3840 x 2160p resolution image in the film's original theatrical aspect ratio of widescreen 2.4:1.
'The Hunt for Red October': The Washington Post's original review from
By Reid Beddow. October 21, 1984 at 12:00 a.m. EDT. Underneath the freezing seas of the North Atlantic, a giant Soviet submarine, the 30,000-ton Red October, many times larger than any American ...
Film Review
In visual terms alone, The Hunt for Red October is a triumph. This film is blessed with a lavish budget, cooperation from the US Navy 6, and a director who knew exactly how to capture the tension and claustrophobia of submarine life, resulting in a veritable feast for the eyes. But it sounds just as great as it looks—the score by composer ...
The Hunt for Red October
The movie has a bit of a James Bond feel to it and interestingly enough, Sean Connery plays Captain Ramius. Alec Baldwin plays Jack Ryan, the only man who seems to believe that Ramius truly intends to defect to the United States. With a saboteur on board the Red October, the plot climaxes with a revelation of intent and some great action sequences.
The Hunt For Red October
The Hunt For Red October, written by Tom Clancy and published in 1984, was a huge commercial and critical success. Critics often mention it as one of the best spy novels of all time. The novel was also the basis for a successful movie starring Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin.
Hunt for Red October, The (4K UHD Review)
The first of author Tom Clancy's bestselling military/political novels to be adapted for the big screen, director John McTiernan's The Hunt for Red October should feel a lot more dated than it does. Though it was released in 1990, the film is very much a product of the 1980s with its tense Cold War tone and its old school use of editing, staging, and cinematography to create drama.
The Hunt for Red October
At two hours and fifteen minutes, Hunt has a stately pace more befitting a meditative spy novel by John Le Carré than a rip-snorter by Clancy. It helps that Sean Connery, as Marko Ramius, the ...
The Hunt for Red October
Paramount Pictures 1990 (2018), 2160p, Dolby True HD 5.1, Dolby Vision HDR, Rated PG, 2 hours and 15 minutes, 2.35:1 Aspect Ratio Starring: Alec Baldwin, Sean Connery, Scott Glenn, James Earl Jones and Sam Neil
The Hunt For Red October: 10 Differences Between The Movie And Book
In many cases, the movie can lose a lot of the nuance of the source material. In the case of The Hunt for Red October, the sped-up pace actually helps to make it a more entertaining story. The movie trims a lot of the fat of the book without losing too much. For instance, Jack's briefing of the Red October to Greer is changed from multiple ...
Hunt for Red October, The
The Hunt for Red October is a complex novel. It is therefore somewhat amazing that the screenwriters were able to distill the essence of the book into a 135-minute movie without butchering it. The film is well-paced and avoids getting bogged down in details. It sidesteps minutia unless those elements are necessary to advance the plot or ...
20 facts you might not know about 'The Hunt for Red October'
The Hunt for Red October is, by and large, a standalone movie, though it ties into the Jack Ryan Universe. Jones's character of Vice Admiral James Greer appears in both of the Ford films, and the ...

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