Patriot Games (1992) on Netflix
Jack Ryan, a former CIA analyst, is in London with his family when he stops gunmen trying to abduct Lord William Holmes. One attacker, Sean Miller, vows revenge.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb6.9/10129,580 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes72%
Trailer
Plot summary
Jack Ryan left the CIA and now lectures at the United States Naval Academy. Cathy, his wife, and their young daughter Sally are with him in London on vacation when gunmen near Buckingham Palace try to take Lord William Holmes, a British government minister for Northern Ireland. Ryan is wounded but disarms one man, fatally shoots two others and subdues Sean Miller, whose younger brother is among the dead. Kevin O'Donnell leads a breakaway IRA faction that the attackers belong to, and his team ambushes the convoy taking Miller to prison, setting him free. Miller promises to avenge his brother, and O'Donnell lets him, Annette and several squadmates travel to the United States. Ryan, told of the escape, doubts a wanted fugitive would risk the journey.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Patriot Games (1992)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Alec Baldwin, who had played Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October, did not return for this film because he was committed to A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway; he later claimed producer David Kirkpatrick had forced him to choose between the play and an open-ended contract clause tying him to sequel dates.
- During reshoots of the finale, Harrison Ford accidentally struck co-star Sean Bean with a boat hook, leaving Bean with a real scar over his eye.
- Patriot Games became the first movie ever given permission to film at the George Bush Center for Intelligence, the CIA's real headquarters.
- After test audiences reacted badly to the original ending, an underwater fight between Jack Ryan and Sean Miller, the filmmakers reshot it as a more explosive boat chase, which pushed the production budget up to $45 million and the total cost, with marketing, to $65 million.
- A Variety review by Joseph McBride calling the film "fascistic, blatantly anti-Irish" set off a controversy so heated that Variety's editor-in-chief Peter Bart wrote to Paramount chairman Martin S. Davis saying it was unprofessional for McBride to bring his politics into a film review.
- Tom Clancy's novel had the assassination target as the Prince of Wales, with several real British royals as characters, but the film replaced them with the fictional Lord Holmes, invented as a nonexistent cousin of the Queen Mother.
- Years before this film was made, a planned ABC television version of Patriot Games collapsed after Paramount sued, arguing its $455,000 contract for The Hunt for Red October had bought it the film and TV rights to Jack Ryan; Clancy's attorney disputed the claim, but the lawsuit killed the TV project anyway.
