The Hunt for Red October (1990) on Netflix
PG19902h 15mActionAdventureThriller
Soviet captain Marko Ramius puts the Red October, a new ballistic missile submarine, to sea. CIA analyst Jack Ryan suspects Ramius means to defect, not attack, and races to prove it.
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Trailer
Plot summary
The Red October is the Soviet Navy's newest ballistic missile submarine, and its caterpillar drive leaves almost no sound for passive sonar to catch. Its commander, Marko Ramius, a Lithuanian-born widower, takes the boat to sea with his officers, and the American attack submarine USS Dallas loses contact. In Washington, officials decide the sub may be a first-strike weapon aimed at the United States. CIA analyst Jack Ryan, based in London, disagrees: knowing Ramius by reputation and having met him, he argues the captain intends to defect. Jeffrey Pelt, the National Security Advisor, allows Ryan three days to establish the case before the fleet is ordered to hunt the boat. The Soviet ambassador, Andrei Lysenko, tells Pelt his country has lost a submarine and is searching for it, while ships of both navies move into the Atlantic.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Hunt for Red October (1990)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Kevin Costner was the filmmakers' first choice to play CIA analyst Jack Ryan; he turned the film down in order to star in and direct Dances with Wolves.
- Klaus Maria Brandauer was cast as Soviet submarine commander Marko Ramius but resigned the role two weeks into filming because of a prior commitment.
- Sean Connery at first declined the film because the script seemed implausible in showing the Soviet Union as an ambitious naval power; the copy he was sent was missing its first page, which set the story before Gorbachev came to power.
- Sean Connery described the submarine sets as very claustrophobic, with 62 people in a confined space 45 feet above the stage floor; the set tilted to 45 degrees and got very hot.
- Just before the film's March 1990 release the Soviet Parliament removed the Communist Party from government, ending the Cold War, so an on-screen crawl was added saying the story takes place in 1984, during the Cold War.
- Rather than choose between subtitled Russian and plain English, the film opens with Russian and subtitles, then has Peter Firth switch mid-sentence to English on the word "Armageddon"; after that all Soviet dialogue is in English.
- Made before CGI became the norm, the film's opening pull-out reveal of the huge Typhoon-class submarine used a nearly full-scale above-water mockup built by welding two barges together.
- Several admirals backed the film, reasoning it could do for submariners what Top Gun did for the Navy's jet fighter pilots; Captain Michael Sherman suggested script changes that would present the Navy in a positive light.
