THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER (1990)

Fresh off the heels of commercial success in the action genre with Predator (1987) and Die Hard (1988), John McTiernan directed The Hunt for Red October, a submarine spy thriller adapted from the novel by Tom Clancy. Having already proved his prowess with directing high-octane action, McTiernan was an ideal candidate to depict this tale of subterfuge and espionage. With a stacked cast consisting of Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Tim Curry, Sam Neill, Stellan Skarsgård, and Jeffrey Jones, it would seem that this film was destined for acclaim.

Criss-crossing between the Soviet and American sides in a thriller where it’s difficult to trust many of these characters, The Hunt for Red October pairs the commanding officer of the Soviet ship Red October, Marko Ramius (Connery), with CIA intelligence analyst Jack Ryan (Baldwin). Both men are cunning, with the latter going to great efforts to make sense of the elusive and seemingly contradictory acts that Ramius undertakes aboard his vessel. But that’s not to say that either man feels all that human. Jack’s introduction to this narrative involves him providing a brief definition of the meaning of turbulence to a polite flight attendant, insisting that this is why he’s unable to sleep while riding in an aircraft. This measure, included to showcase this protagonist’s deep focus on the smallest of things (perhaps to a fault), is as wooden and insincere as lines of dialogue can be.

Ramius isn’t much better. Connery is a dynamic actor, so even hearing the Russian character speak with the actor’s native Scottish accent is only mildly distracting. (After all, if an English accent is routinely used by characters supposedly speaking a foreign language in film, which is conveyed through English to viewers, it’s no less logical for Connery to speak like a Scotsman.) The bigger issue here is that the Scottish actor doesn’t make any effort to give an emotive performance. That’s sort of the point; the Soviets here seem like a dispassionate lot in general, as their lives lived in favour of a greater good have robbed them of personalities. Such flat approaches to characterisation and political messaging can be found in the first few words exchanged between the ship commander and political officer Ivan Putin (Peter Firth). When Ramius tells the latter character that he did not expect his private space to be occupied by someone else, the overbearing political officer reminds him that there is no such thing as privacy in a society founded on the needs of the collective.

When it comes to the Cold War and the US’s conflict with the Soviet Union, it was already clear which side of the geopolitical conflict this movie was on when it paired the young, suave, hyper-focused family man in Jack with the stern, austere-looking, elderly, and childless submarine captain in Ramius. But a repudiation of the Soviet Union and how it made people feel more like tools of the state than human beings requires at least a hint of genuine insight, along with the sense that this will be interspersed across the film’s plot instead of churned out in brief one-liners near its opening.

As for how these two protagonists fit within the mechanics of the story itself, they are as fixed and inexpressive as the movie’s technical aspects. The Hunt for Red October’s ensemble does a lot of talking, but information is always prioritised over emotion in these exchanges. The story never feels as if it’s lingering for too long on any one plot beat, and yet many minutes can pass by without the sense that all that much of consequence has occurred. This film is keen to convey reality; that much is clear even to someone as woefully unacquainted with naval warfare as myself. After all, what else could justify a plot that, in a storytelling sense, feels rather complex for what is at its core an incredibly simple story?

What redeems these sequences, which are neither torturous nor exhilarating, is the handsome cinematography, which somehow manages to make rooms in a submarine comprised almost entirely of grey colours look textured and vivid. It’s fascinating to watch these environments, which are comprised of so many dials, buttons, and gridwork that one wonders how these characters don’t get a headache surveying their immediate surroundings all day long. But while the cinematography, colour grading, and sets are worthy of acclaim, The Hunt for Red October fails to capture the claustrophobia and isolation of being in a vessel at sea while engaged in combat, nor does it ever make for an invigorating thriller.

Similar to the suspense thriller Juggernaut (1974), which also takes place on a vessel, this film has a pleasant veneer and a star-studded cast, but little going on beneath the surface. Emotions seem to be adrift from each of the characters in this ensemble piece. It’s as if the movie is trying to emulate the self-image that Ramius projects. But that gruff exterior should be a mask for a degree of vulnerability, especially as it becomes clear not long into this tale that Ramius’ loyalty to his nation-state is compromised, where he’s commandeering Red October to his own whims alongside his trusted crewmates. Instead, this gruff exterior simply is Ramius’ personality. Jack is even more bland, a nerdy family man whose intelligence is insisted upon about as much as his positive traits are condescendingly enforced on the basis that he has a family of his own.

When one considers the dynamism of these leads (particularly Connery), the expressiveness of Tim Curry and James Earl Jones, or the nuances that Sam Neill and Stellan Skarsgård have brought to roles throughout their respective careers, it’s almost a shame to see their faces continually cropping up in this narrative, where these bland side characters could have been portrayed by lesser actors and little of value would be lost. Just like Juggernaut, this film feels like the work of a craftsman and not an artist, and it is in this absence of sensitivity that both movies fail to offer any thrills.

Although it mostly winds up being a painfully stiff and inert experience, The Hunt for Red October’s commitment to realism does have some redeeming qualities. The film’s sound design is excellent, with these vessels constantly creaking or making similarly eerie noises, which sound like just about the last thing you would want to hear when you’re engaged in combat, especially out at sea. While the action itself is rarely thrilling, these technical elements go some way towards transporting us to this haunting environment, where the outside world for as far as the eye can see spells out certain death, and their vessel, which doubles as their lifeline, feels absurdly flimsy when it’s engaged in combat.

The same cannot be said of this movie’s ideological bent, which screenwriters Larry Ferguson and Donal E. Stewart doggedly refuse to illuminate in interesting ways. The closest it comes to offering something in the way of political or emotional resonance is through Vasily Borodin (Neill), Ramius’ second-in-command aboard Red October. Vasily’s hopes and dreams, when paired with his final line in the film, almost achieve their desired effect, but the character is still too threadbare and remote to care about all that deeply. Ideology clouds a movie that would have benefited from artistic liberties to make its intricate plotting more involving, just as the need for good press influenced Captain Michael Sherman, the director of the Navy’s western regional information office in Los Angeles, to suggest changes to The Hunt for Red October’s script to paint the Navy more positively. With this in mind, the film is hardly impartial, so there’s not much sense for it to relentlessly prioritise realism over entertainment value.

Though certainly competent, McTiernan’s workmanlike and cold approach to The Hunt for Red October, along with Ferguson and Stewart’s lifeless script, robs viewers of the fun that can be had with the director’s previous films. Those movies, which crackled with energy and excitement, are replaced by a rote and paint-by-numbers submarine thriller that’s far too enamoured with its intricate and forgettable plotting to craft a tense, thrilling experience.

USA | 1990 | 135 MINUTES | 2.39:1 • 2.35:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH • RUSSIAN

Cast & Crew

director: John McTiernan.
writers: Larry Ferguson & Donald E. Stewart (based on the novel by Tom Clancy).
starring: Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn, James Earl Jones, Sam Neill, Tim Curry, Peter Firth, Jeffrey Jones, Stellan Skarsgård, Fred Thompson & Courtney B. Vance.