Clear and Present Danger: Film Analysis in Contrast with Drug Wars of the 1980s - Essay Example

?Clear and Present Danger (1994 Film analysis in contrast with drug wars of the 1980s In Jack Ryan, Tom Clancy created a character that was heavily involved in the events of the post-cold war time period, including the events that took place during the Columbian Drug War. The film Clear and Present Danger (1994) is an adaptation of the book by the same name by Tom Clancy which is the second book in the Jack Ryan series. The film starred Harrison Ford, Willem Defoe, Anne Archer, Joachim de Almeida, and Henry Czerny, with important appearances by James Earl Jones and Donald Moffat. Hope Lange and Dean Jones, stars from another era, both made appearances as officials in the government. The film was directed by Philip Noyce with the adaptation written by Donald Stewart .1 The film revolves around the temporary appointment of Ryan as Deputy Director of Intelligence for the CIA when Admiral James Greer becomes ill with cancer. Quickly the action ratchets up as one of the President’s friends is murdered along with the friend’s family. As Ryan is called in to investigate he is embroiled in an intrigue of subterfuge and secrecy. He is used to present false facts to Congress in order to cover up an operation that is considered unethical. An action against the men who were involved in the murder ends badly, leaving the covert troups hanging in the wind and Ryan furious for the inappropriate and illegal action for which he has now been set up to take responsibility. In the end, Jack Ryan steps up and goes in after the troops with the agent who believed that Ryan was responsible for the cut-off in communications, rescuing the troops and making a political statement about the nature of right and wrong. The film is reflective of many of the unclear and shadowed legacies of the events of President Ronald Reagan’s term in office. In one scene, Robert Ritter and Jack Ryan have a showdown about the events that Ritter approved but burdened Ryan with the responsibility. Ritter repeats twice that Ryan will have to say “I have no recollection” when he will supposedly have to face congress about the illegal events.2 At the end of the scene, Ritter shouts after Jack “The world is grey, Jack”, a theme of the time period when drugs were part of the foreign relations events.3 During the administration of President Ronald Reagan, the Iran-Contra affair was rife with declarations of a lack of memory or knowledge of the events by the President and others presumed involved. Former Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North might be a real life figure who is represented by Jack Ryan. Regardless of knowledge of the events, he was the central figure indicted on charges from the fall-out of the exposure of the Iran-Contra deal, but was able to portray for the cameras a patriot with a wholesome appearance.4 While this comparison to North is not strictly representative of the truth of North’s involvement (a truth that may never be fully revealed to history), the potential threat against Ryan through Ritter parallels the feeling of the event. The period of President Reagan’s term and the events of covert and illegal deals is the universe and period of time in which the film takes place. The events of the film are a parallel to the concept of backroom deals and covert operations of a nefarious and illegal nature that were the topic of literary and film plots of the 1980s and 1990s. The legacy of the Vietnam War, as President Nixon’s administration covertly moved troops into Cambodia is reflected through the illegal movement of troops within the film.5 The intrigue and conspirator themes about a government that cannot be trusted is the underlying context on which the story of the film is constructed. The specific theme of the film is built upon the relationship that the United States had with Columbia and the Columbia drug cartels. The unfortunate state of affairs in Columbia was based upon a system that supported the sale of drugs into the United States. Columbia had shifted its economy from one based on tobacco and coffee to one based upon the agricultural growth and distribution of drugs, primarily cocaine. The overall export market portion of illegal drugs out of Columbia from 1980 to 1995 was 41.4%.6 The drug cartels were powerful, their leaders considered the “economic elite, different but not that different from previous elites, like the tobacco kings and the coffee barons, who made their money through the export of primary goods, products of the land”.7 In going to war against the cartels, the United States was essentially going to war against a country, but without the foreign relations constrictions or provisions that could create circumstances that was within the global theater. As the nature of the true power in Columbia was through the economic control over illegal drugs, the nature of the literature that represented that time, as a reflection of many of the events, was centered around slipping in and out of the shadows. When Ritter shouts his line “The world is grey, Jack”,8 he is reiterating a sentiment of the last half of the 20th century in which the government is a system of conspiracy and shadow operations that lead to lies to the American public. The history of Columbia is filled with violence, its political culture developed through assassinations and violence. One of the most powerful figures in Columbia during the 1980s was Pablo Escobar. Escobar was a Columbian drug lord whose violent reign and economic power gave him a dual persona in history. In 1989, Escobar made the Forbes list as the seventh richest man in the world, which means that his public fortune was such that he qualified for that kind of wealth.9 Escobar had ambitions for total control in Columbia and in trying to assert his control, he used violence as a mode of coercion.10 The dichotomy of the power of figures such as Escobar and the economic status of the cartels within the country of Columbia provide a sense of dark adventure and romance, a counterbalance to the side of ‘good’ as represented by Ryan. There is an attraction to this level of power, as much as it brings up feelings of revulsion. This aesthetic, the nature of violence as a means of control and coercion, is reflected in the film, the initial deaths of the President’s friend and family done in order to put pressure on others and send a message about dealing with the cartel. In discussing an episode in Columbian history, Kirk states that “The story begins, as many do in Columbia, with a massacre”.11 Because of the prevalence of violent coercion that has been used by the Columbian cartels, the literary translation of a story involving Columbia will almost always begin with a massacre. This aesthetic also includes the nature of good versus evil that sometimes seems so clear within the United States, as represented by Jack Ryan, but as Stephen Dudley explains concerning his time in Columbia as a human rights observer “it was difficult to distinguish friend from foe…I could never really tell whom I was speaking to or why they were speaking to me”.12 The nature of the crossed lines and boundaries in Columbia are held in harsh contrast to Ryan’s distinct set of values about what is right and wrong. The culture in Columbia is a set of values that have to do with survival at any cost. The nature of who is right and who is wrong is brought down to violence. Molano relates a moment when “nine campasinos (peasants) from Arenal were cut up with chainsaws. After pieces of their bodies were hung up along the roadside, people headed into the hills”.13 The film does well in representing the violence of the cartels and the effects on those within Columbia that are innocent. The nature of life within Columbia is in contrast to the nature of Ryan’s belief system, which is intended to reflect the beliefs of the average American. Clear and Present Danger (1994) is a film that expresses the fears, culture, and nature of a period of time in regard to the political atmosphere of the 1980s and early 1990s. Through an exploration of the Columbia drug cartels and common occurrences that represent that economic and political system, in contrast with the conspiracy theory fears about the American government, the film presents an opportunity to examine the nature of right and wrong. Clear and Present danger is a film that explores the political environment and public opinion of government of the 1990s. Through the character of Jack Ryan, Tom Clancy represents the hopes of the American ideology, while bringing in contrasts for Ryan to defeat. Bibliography Braun, Herbert. Our Guerrillas, Our Sidewalks: A Journey into the Violence of Colombia. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. Clear and Present Danger. Directed by Philip Noyce. 1994. Burbank, Calif: Paramount, 29 March 2011. DVD. Dudley, Stephen S. Walking ghosts: Murder and guerilla politics in Columbia. New York: Routledge, 2004. Gibbs, Stephen. ‘Mexican ‘drug lord’ on rich list’. BBC News. 12 March 2009. 8 June 2011. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7938904.stm IMDB. ‘Clear and Present Danger‘. The Internet Movie Database. 2011. 8 June 2011. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109444/plotsummary Kamm, Henry. Cambodia: Report from a Stricken Land. New York: Arcade Publ, 1998. Kirk, Robin. More Terrible Than Death: Massacres, Drugs, and America's War in Colombia. New York: Public Affairs, 2004. Molano, Alfredo. The Dispossessed: Chronicles of the Desterrados of Colombia. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2005. Palacios, Marco. Between Legitimacy and Violence: A History of Colombia, 1875-2002. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006. Wroe, Ann. Lives, Lies and the Iran-Contra Affair. London: I.B. Tauris & Co, 1992. Print. Read More