Ben Affleck plays Thomas Clancy's CIA agent Jack Ryan in his third incarnation (Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford having previously filled the shoes), in the fourth film based on the character's exploits. This time Ryan has just days to track down a group of neo-Nazis, led by Richard Dressler (Alan Bates) who have a nuclear bomb and intend to use it against an American city to ignite a nuclear exchange between Russia and America.
The film went into production the day before 9/11 and when it was released in May 2002, both the film and its message were still chillingly prescient. Clancy's original novel had the terrorists as Middle Eastern but it was considered politic to change them to a vaguer political grouping.
Affleck is a little more subdued than Ford or Baldwin but still carries the distinct air of a man who'd be happier behind an anonymous desk than caught up in the action, while Morgan Freeman as his briefing officer is the viewer's representative on screen, explaining the twists and turns of a plot that always thrills.
The Sum of All Fears is a Film programme that first aired in 2002 and has been classified a 12 certificate.
