Clear and Present Danger is basically a drama that pretends to be an action movie. It as if the director, Phillip Noyce, wanted to make a film about ideas and was forced by the studio to add action sequences to dumb down the movie and make it more commercial. I don't really know why, without the need to be a summer blockbuster this might have been a Christmas Oscar contender.
The movie is a quasi-sequel to Patriot Games, which was an even more quasi- sequel to The Hunt for Red October. All films are based on novels by Tom Clancy concerning his signature character, Jack Ryan. Although the plotlines don't continue into the new films, the characters do, sort of. All three pictures feature James Earl Jones as Ryan's mentor, Admiral Greer, but in October Ryan is played by Alec Baldwin. The continuity is a bit greater between the second and third pictures- both are directed by Noyce and both feature Harrison Ford as Ryan, Anne Archer as his wife, and Thora Birch as his daughter but Ryan doesn't have the same friends or associates in Danger. Go figure.
Anyway, Clear and Present Danger opens with an incident on a Columbian ship that involves the death of a high ranking US ambassador and a personal friend to President (Donald Mofatt). Ryan is called in to investigate and he eventually uncovers a Watergate-like string of corruption that leads to high levels of the government. Because Ryan and his friend Greer (ill with cancer) seem to be the only people in the government left with any integrity, Ryan is torn. If he tells the truth, his career is threatened, if he lies, his soul is.
Although there have been lots of films made about characters whose personal integrity are threatened, it must be said that Ford's movie star presence adds a lot to this material. Despite his strong physical presence, the actor has a Pacino-like ability to be intense while underplaying his scenes. Although Archer's part is stereotypical and underwritten, the rest of the cast is excellent. Jones is so good (as usual) that I wished he had a larger part.
Where the movie gets bogged down is in most of the action in Columbia. A subplot involving a former Marine (Willem Dafoe) is unnecessary and slows down the picture. I also felt that it was a mistake for Ryan himself to head to South America, he seems more like a desk analyst than a real action hero. And of course, the numerous scenes of military strikes near a drug kingpin's villa are irrelevant, slow down the movie, and frankly not very exciting.
I would not say that Clear and Present Danger is required viewing, but it has a lot strong elements to it that make it worth a rental if you are interested in this material. And although I haven't seen The Sum of All Fears, I have a strange feeling that Harrison Ford is a better Jack Ryan than Ben Affleck. Clear and Present Danger (1994)