Film / The Sum of All Fears

"You don't fight Russia and America. You get Russia and America to fight each other... and destroy each other."

"This no longer has anything to do with Baltimore! Now it's about fear! Our fear of your missiles, your fear of our subs, fear of being weak, fear of making a mistake... the same fear of the other guy that had us build these goddamn bombs in the first place!"

— Jack Ryan

The Sum of All Fears is a 2002 movie adaptation of the novel of the same name by Tom Clancy. The first Jack Ryan film since Clear and Present Danger in 1994, it acts as a Continuity Reboot of the franchise.

The basic plot centers around a rogue nuclear bomb being developed by a terrorist organization and detonated in an American city to incite mistrust between the United States and Russia to the point of open war. CIA analyst Jack Ryan and his network of friends on both sides rush to track down the actual group responsible before the nuclear option becomes real.

Directed by Phil Alden Robinson, the movie stars Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan, with a supporting cast including Morgan Freeman, Bridget Moynahan, James Cromwell, Ciarán Hinds, and Liev Schreiber. It is notable for changing the villains from Arab terrorists to Neo-Nazis while forwarding the timeline to 2002. It also re-envisions Ryan as a young analyst in a form of Continuity Reboot/Prequel from the previous movies, and has him dealing with his first foray into the real inner workings of the CIA.

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The Sum of All Fears contains examples of:

• Action Duo: Jack Ryan and John Clark during the mission in Ukraine. The former is just a CIA analyst with no recent military training while the latter is Cabot's go-to operator. It's implied that Clark only really takes Ryan along as payback for missing out on the White House Correspondent's Dinner, but Ryan's sudden ability to speak Ukranian comes in handy.
• Adaptation Distillation: Very much so. Elizabeth Elliot and her romantic subplot with the President are nowhere to be found, no ground battle in Berlin or sinking of an American SSBN, Ryan is a rookie analyst rather than Deputy Director of the CIA, and more. Clancy said in the DVD Commentary "I wrote the book they ignored."invoked
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • President Fowler is nowhere near as unpleasant as his book counterpart. He still makes rash decisions, but they are based on logical reasons given to him by his advisers. In the book, Fowler ends up resigning from office after nearly nuking an innocent city for revenge, while here, he ends the crisis when given a chance and later enacts anti-nuclear weapons treaties with Russia. On a smaller note, he's a good sport about being booed by the crowd at the Superbowl and is concerned for the people while he's being hurried to safety.
  • Cabot as well. In the book Cabot is an incompetent asshole who leaves all of the work to Ryan and a total pushover. Here, Cabot is a mentor towards Ryan, and is one of Ryan's biggest allies.
• Adaptational Name Change: Andrey Narmonov was renamed "Nemerov" in this movie.
• Adaptational Villainy: In the book Admiral Dubinin was loyal to the Russian government, A Father to His Men, and just as in the dark to the conspiracy as anybody else. Here, Dubinin is a member of the conspiracy who willingly helps excaberate tensions by sending fighter planes to bomb a U.S. warship.
• Age Lift: In the novel, Jack Ryan is the CIA's Deputy Director, having worked his way up through the ranks in Clancy's previous works. Here, he's a young, up and coming analyst who gets his first field assignment partway through the film.
• All Germans Are Nazis: Sorta, the main baddie is an Austrian Neo-Nazi who is aggrieved that Europe is sidelined to playing second-fiddle to the United States on the world stage. His goal is to have Russia destroy the U.S. (and vice-versa) in a nuclear war, leaving Europe to take its rightful place as world hegemon.
• Amoral Afrikaner: Derek Olson, a notorious South African Arms Dealer who sold the bomb to Dressler and he supplies various weapons to other terrorists in the world.
• Artistic License – Geography: The football game takes place as a fictional stadium called the "Baltimore Forum" outside downtown. In real-life such a stadium would not exist since the M&T Bank Stadium is right within walking distance.
• Artistic License – Military:
  • A sneak attack against an American carrier in the North Atlantic is not an easy feat. In a real life scenario the bombers would be detected from a great distance by early warning systems and there would be patrol craft on station to intercept. The mandatory and numerous carrier escorts would provide a SAM screen and a Macross Missile Massacre much more intense than the one shown in the movie would be needed to penetrate it. Tom Clancy calls the director out on stuff like this in the audio commentary. Strong, but not mean.
  • Also, the missiles on the movie poster are surface-to-air missiles designed for shooting down airplanes; they are not nuclear ones.
  • It's exceedingly unlikely the injured and rather deranged looking Ryan could land at the Pentagon (under high alert and with a nuke having detonated nearby) in a Maryland State Police helicopter, rush through the metal detector and frantically try to use Cabot's entry card at the gate which repeatedly fails, prompting the security guard to demand to see the card which Ryan repeatedly refuses... being allowed entry once the card works.
  • The U.S. president does not have a two-man rule for launching nukes, rather, that's for his subordinates. He can order a nuclear strike own his own volition at any time.
• Artistic License – Physics: At the hospital, there's no delay between the nuke flash and the blast wave hitting. This would mean the hospital is right next to the explosion and would have been destroyed. Additionally, the TV in the hospital somehow shows the flash slightly before the flash hits the hospital. Even if somehow the camera could have detected the flash and it be transmitted and shown by the TV, it could not do this faster than the flash arrives at the hospital because the flash travels at the speed of light.
• Artistic License – Ships: An American aircraft carrier is shown sailing without active escorts and no air patrols flying, within striking range of Russian airfields during a serious international crisis. If this had happened in real life, they would deserve to get sunk.
• Asshole Victim: Dressler has the three Russian scientists and his American collaborator brutally killed once they're no longer useful to him. Considering that they were all traitors of their own country and Neo-Nazi collaborators one can hardly feel sorry for them. Then Dressler himself and the rest of the conspirators become this when they're all killed by American and Russian assassins in revenge for their crimes.
• Award-Bait Song: If We Could Remember by Yolanda Adams.
• Berserk Button: Russian leader Nemerov flips out when the U.S. president mentions Russian atrocities committed in Chechnya. It marks a realistic moment, as he immediately retorts with a Whataboutism line.
• Big Bad: Dressler is the one that ultimately arranged for the Baltimore attack and for US and Russian forces to go to war against one another, in an attempt to trigger World War III.
• Board to Death:
  Monceau: In light of the week's events, I am grown uncomfortable with this plan. So I must beg your leave, gentlemen.
  Dressler: Herr Haft will help you out.
  Haft: Your scarf, monsieur. (strangles him)
• The Cameo: Producer Mace Neufeld as Correspondence Dinner chairman.
• British Nazis: The Neo-Nazi leader is an Austrian billionare played by Alan Bates.
• Cassandra Truth:
  • Jack needs to cancel his date, but knows he can't be honest about why he's doing it. Cabot encourages him to tell her the truth. She immediately takes it as a lie and hangs up on him, much to Cabot's amusement.
  • Jack again falls victim to this trope in the second half of the film, this time with the stakes far higher. Having learned the true origin of the nuclear weapon that devastated Baltimore, he tries desperately to convince the President and his cabinet of his findings. Having been unimpressed by Ryan on previous occasions, they quickly tune - and then shut - him out.
• Chain Pain: Ryan, during his fight with Haft.
• Completely Unnecessary Translator: Jack Ryan is brought to Russia and asked to work as a translator. President Nemerov asks Ryan if he's read his dossier. Ryan says he has, and starts listing biographical information about the man. Including the fact that in college, he got his highest grades in English. Nemerov drops the act immediately, and is impressed by Jack calling him on it.
• Danger Room Cold Open: The DEFCON 1 situation at the beginning is a drill.
• Deadline News: A television in the Baltimore hospital that is hit by the nuclear blast is screening a live report of the President's emergency evacuation from the stadium (where the bomb is). The screen goes white a fraction of a second before the blast wave hits.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • In the novel, the Druse farmer survived and wasn't mentioned at all after the bomb was recovered by the Arab terrorists. In the movie, he dies of radiation poisoning from the bomb, but not before giving Clark some vital information. Also his son, who died in the Yom Kippur War in the movie, but survived in the book, albeit as a cripple from his APC getting blown up.
  • Cabot also survived the novel, and was never even close to the nuclear bomb. Here, he is one of the casualties of the nuclear explosion.
  • Dubinin is assassinated by Russian agents for his role on the conspiracy.
• Death Montage: The game ends with the assassinations of the conspirators responsible for the Super Bowl bombing.
• Decapitation Strike: A group of Neo-Nazis smuggles a nuke into Baltimore on the day the President is supposed to watch a football game there. The President is evacuated in time, but the stadium (and much of the city) is destroyed, and one of the President's closest advisors is also killed. Due to the rising tensions, the attack is blamed on Russia, almost leading to World War III. However, the true goal of the Neo-Nazis wasn't to kill the President, it was to start a war between the US and Russia, so they can then pick up the pieces.
• Didn't Think This Through: Desk jockey Jack Ryan tries to fight a big buff Neo-Nazi thug. Goes about as well as you'd expect.
• Diplomatic Back Channel: After receiving some information on the Russian nuclear facility he and Jack were visiting, Bill Cabot explains that he has a source in the Kremlin that he talks to in order to keep the back channels open. After Cabot is killed during the attack on Baltimore, this contact is revealed to be Anatoli Grushkov, who offers to keep talking to Jack, to keep the back channels open in the hopes of staving off disaster.
• Disney Owns This Trope: The football game at which the nuke is detonated is never identified by name in the film; the novel makes it clear that it's the Super Bowl.
• Divide and Conquer: "You don't fight Russia and America. You get Russia and America to fight each other... and destroy each other."
• Dolled-Up Installment: The game adaptation is really just Ghost Recon with new levels, characters, story, etc.
• Don't Ask, Just Run: One of the technicians at a Russian nuclear weapon disassembly plant is seen by Jack Ryan. The guide with him translates the Cyrillic shirt wording: "I am a bomb technician. If you see me running, try to keep up."
• Double Don't Know: The US President was whisked out of the Baltimore football stadium before a nuclear bomb goes off. His aide asks:
  Gene: Mr. President, are you all right?
  President: Jesus, Gene, how do you think I am? How many casyalties?
  Gene: We don't know.
  President: Cabot said it was Russian. How the hell did it get in there?
  Gene: We don't know. Radar didn't pick it up, so we know it wasn't a missile.
  President: How is Cabot? Where is he?
  Gene: I don't know.
  President: Well what do you know?
  Gene: I don't know, all right, I don't know.
  President: All right,all right.
  Gene: I don't know, for Christ's sake!
• The Dragon: Haft, a Neo-Nazi assassin who works directly for Dressler.
• Even Evil Has Standards: One of the Neo-Nazi group member express reluctance in Dressler's megalomaniac plan in starting a war bewtween US and Russia after causing a deadly bomb attack. When he tries to call himself out he gets strangled by Dressler's right hand man.
• Expy: CIA director William Cabot is a similar substitute for Admiral Greer from The Hunt for Red October; both are African-American Reasonable Authority Figures with high clearance who introduce Ryan into decision-making circles. Cabot is more cynical.
• External Combustion: Double Subverted. Dressler is smart enough to have his bodyguard start the car first, and the poor guy obviously knows why. This is why the assassin wires the bomb into the cigarette lighter, since Dressler is a chain smoker. In a nice touch of irony, the bodyguard survives, having been sent off by Dressler to gather his things.
• False Flag Operation: The terrorists plan to provoke a war between the United States and Russia by first nuking an American city and then getting a rogue Russian general to order an attack on a US aircraft carrier. They very nearly succeed; only Ryan's last minute intervention in an extremely tense hotline conversation, laying out all the evidence of the conspiracy, prevents World War III from erupting.
• Fatal Family Photo: The fighter pilot in the opening sequence has a photo wedged in the instrument panel of his cockpit. It comes loose and falls the the floor, and the pilot is reaching for it when the SAM missile blows him out of the sky. In the audio commentary Clancy points out that the scene demonstrates why pilots in Real Life aren't allowed to stick up mementos in their cockpit.
• Fourth Reich: Like the book, the movie is a global political thriller wherein an Austrian tycoon obtains a nuclear device that was lost by the Israelis during the Syrian incursion of the Golan Heights. The villain plans to detonate this device in Baltimore, Maryland and expects this to trigger nuclear warfare between the United States and the Russian Federation. After a coup for the German chancellery, Dressler aims to seize all of Europe and establish an enduring Fourth Reich. (The film is an adaptation of the novel by Tom Clancy, but with considerable changes to the plot; among others, this trope is not present in the book, where the villains were overall more realistic, and Arab terrorists rather than Nazis.)
  Dressler: Hitler was not crazy; he was stupid. You don't fight Russia and America. You get Russia and America to fight each other.
• Fun with Foreign Languages: Subverted when Jack Ryan addresses the Russian president in flawless Russian, and ends his message of goodwill by indicating that, since the Russian President earned a degree in English, and speaks perfect English, there's no reason for Jack to speak Russian.
• The Gadfly: Cabot deliberately tricks Jack into making himself look like a liar to his girlfriend. Then he makes up for it by getting them passes to the White House Correspondence Dinner.
• Gilligan Cut:
  Clark: Suit up!
  Ryan: Clark, no! Clark! NO!
  Clark and Ryan speeding across the reservoir
• Great Offscreen War: The conflict in Chechnya is often referred to, but never shown on-screen.
• Happily Married: Nemerov and his wife seem to be this from what he can see in their scenes togheter. Nemerov even claims to Ryan that since he met her he never took a look to another woman.
• Idiot Ball:
  • It might be somewhat understandable that the US President attends a big national public event like the Superbowl, even in a time where international tensions are running very high; in such times the USA would want to project strength and unity, and using a public facing figure like the President would be the way to do it. What is much less excusable is that the Director of the CIA decides to attend the same event, at a time where his job very much requires him to be able to always keep an close eye on the developing situation, and the only way to contact him, at place where a noisy crowd is guaranteed to be present and high network traffic will likely cause calls to drop, is nothing but a regular cell phone.
  • Jack Ryan grabs it hard when he has tries to contact the President, but is only able to get on the phone with Becker, a man who hates him and dismissively refers to him as "the Nemerov apologist" right off the bat. Instead of taking the professional approach, and just sticking to immediately telling Becker that he can prove the plutonium in the bomb was of American origin, which would at least encourage further investigation before retaliation, Jack instead decides to get into an argument with the guy about Nemerov's integrity, which just makes Becker hang up on him. Of course, Becker is handling the idiot ball here too, since he's willingly ignoring potential new information from a CIA Analyst who he knows was working directly for Bill Cabot in recent weeks, simply because he personally dislikes the guy.
• Inter-Service Rivalry: The plot of the film was altered to have terrorists merely severely damage a U.S. aircraft carrier, as opposed to sinking/destroying it outright. In one SG-1 episode, the Goa'uld destroy an entire U.S. Navy carrier battle group... which the Department of the Air Force technical advisors evidently had no problem with! FWIW, "destroyed by Aliens" may be less a problem for the military in general, than "destroyed by the Russians".
• Irony: A Neo-Nazi organisation is in possession of a nuclear weapon originally possessed by the Israelis.
• Let's You and Him Fight: The villains try to get the two world superpowers, the U.S. and Russia, to destroy each other.
• Make the Bear Angry Again: Part of the planning of the antagonists is to get the US and Russia into a shooting war.
• Meaningful Name: Dressler is just one graphy away of Anton Drexler, the founder of the Nazi Party that was hijacked by Adolf Hitler and pushed away into irrelevance. Dressler in the movie criticizes Hitler as having hijacked and denied Fascism its rightful place in the world as a result of his own shortcomings.
• Missing Steps Plan: How the neo-fascist conspiracy is actually going to take control over Europe following a nuclear war between USA and Russia, a scenario that is all but guaranteed to immediately escalate into World War III and lay complete waste to vast parts of Europe in the process is never really explained. They seem to operate under the assumption that without America and Russia to stop them, they can just waltz in and use their wealth to somehow take over the governments of the various European states without any resistance and/or major problems, but in the kind of scenario they are setting up there very likely won't be any functioning states left standing to take over, while any surviving governments are probably going to violently resist any challengers to their power, and with the collapse of any kind of global economy their material wealth is going be rendered worthless.
• Mythology Gag: The absent in the novel Tupoloev Backfire attack on the U.S. carrier is transplanted from Clancy's Red Storm Rising, which technically is not part of the Ryanverse.
• National Anthem: Performed before the Super Bowl. Particularly unusual is that the performance uses the lyrics of The Star Spangled Banner's fourth verse.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • If in the novel Narmonov was a Mikhail Gorbachev's expy, in the movie Nemerov is a Vladimir Putin's expy, and his predecessor, President Zorkin, was a Boris Yeltsin's expy.
  • Besides Anton Drexler, Austrian billionaire and neo-Nazi Richard Dressler resembles Jörg Haider, an Austrian politician who was Governor of Carinthia and whose parents had been early members of the Austrian Nazi Party (DNSAP, the Austrian affiliate of the NSDAP, the German Nazi Party).
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Ryan vs. Haft. Ryan nearly gets his ass handed to him, and just barely manages to beat him by nearly hanging him with a chain.
• Nothing Is Scarier: We don't actually see the bomb detonate, only the shockwave from the blast.
• Oh, Crap!: Cabot when he realizes that there's a nuclear bomb at the football game where the president is.
• Ominous Latin Chanting: The Mission, though it sounds more of a One-Woman Wail it has Latin lyrics.
• On a Scale from One to Ten: When the love interest is asked "Cute scale, one to ten" about Ben Affleck's character, she responds with, "Oh, I don’t know... twelve."
• One-Woman Wail: The Mission.
• Point Defenseless: There's a scene where an American carrier (unrealistically traveling without escorts) is set upon by Russian aircraft. It is seen firing its CIWS at the incoming missiles, to little effect. This was actually something of a transplant of a scene from another Tom Clancy novel (see the Literature entry).
• Poor Communication Kills: When calling Becker, who he is well aware does not believe Jack's interpretation of Nemerov (in fact, Becker calls him "the Nemerov apologist"), Jack, who at this point is in in possession of actual evidence the Russians didn't blow this bomb, responds with about the most unhelpful statement possible short of personally insulting Becker: "Sir, this bomb was not Nemerov. I know this guy." Becker promptly hangs up. Masterful.
• Precision F-Strike: Given the movie's rating, the one use of the F-Bomb is given to the President, in the aftermath of the attack on Baltimore. Discussed in the DVD commentary, where the original cut had two, and given that they could only keep one in a PG-13 movie, they decided to let the President use it.
• Pretext for War: The villains plan revolves around making a nuke that looks Russian, and then detonating it on American soil, thus getting the two superpowers to launch attacks against one another.
• Prevent the War: The villains are attempting to provoke a war between the USA and the Russians by detonating a nuclear bomb at the Super Bowl, and by instigating another attack; in the book, East Germans disguised as Russian commanders get the Russian tanks to fire at the American tanks near Berlin, in the movie, a well-bribed Russian air force general instructs his air wing to attack a US aircraft carrier. Jack Ryan and John Clark have to find out what really happened before one side starts nuking the other.
• Proscenium Reveal: The film opens with the US President seemingly in the act of ordering a nuclear strike; when he is interrupted by a call from his wife, it is quickly revealed that he is participating in a training exercise.
• Resignations Not Accepted: One of the conspirators disagrees with the Neo-Nazis' murderous plan and attempts a gentleman's exit. He soon learns it is not an option.
• Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: The antagonists. Notable in that we see more of the upper-crust expensive-suit-wearing leadership sipping fine wine in a tastefully-decorated European townhouse than their head-shaved, Swastika-tattooed wife-beater-clad underlings scurrying around in a backwoods paramilitary camp.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: In the film's finale, all of the major conspirators are discreetly hunted down and assassinated by Russian and American agents.
• Sacrificial Lion: William Cabot is killed two-thirds of the way through the movie.
• Satellite Love Interest: Catherine Muller, who has little bearing on the plot.
• Scenery Gorn: Only lightly played - after Baltimore is nuked, the only long shot we see is of a mushroom cloud rising through the dusty fog kicked up by the shockwave. The explosion itself is mostly seen from the ground or helicopter level. But there are a number of scenes in the outskirts where generic streets are on fire, emergency vehicles are flying around, and chaos generally reigns.
• Shout-Out:
  • Russian President Nemirov's speech, at the end, is taken from one JFK speech. The one heard at the beginning of JFK and at the end of Thirteen Days.
  • A terrorist attack on the Super Bowl? Also done.
  • The depiction of a demilitarisation treaty between USA and Russia at the end of the film while the audience is treated to a montage of the perpetrators getting hunted down and mercilessly killed by the two countries' secret services, resembles Michael Corleone's purge of the rivals five families meanwhile he stands at the altar as the child's godfather in the christening of his sister’s baby.
• Slave to PR: Nemirov isn't behind the attacks, but he can't just admit that without conceding that portions of his military are going rogue. Ryan has to point out subtle tactical choices which are hinting at the situation without broadcasting it to the world.
• Superweapon Suspense Subversion: The film opens with the President and his advisors preparing to order a nuclear strike until they are interrupted by a phone call from his wife; he immediately stops to take the call, and soon after ends what is revealed to have been just an exercise, wryly asking if they can continue "some other time..." This scene is echoed later, when the President and his cabinet are again seen working through the procedures to order a launch... only now Baltimore has been nuked, Russian and American forces have engaged each other, and the tension in the room makes it clear that this time it's very much for real.
• Tagline: "27,000 nuclear weapons. One is missing."
• Take a Third Option: The Secretary of Defense wants to Nuke 'em, the Secretary of State says it's "not reasonable!". A few minutes later, they agree to a conventional attack on the airbase that launched the attack on the carrier.
• Take Me Out at the Ball Game: The plot hinges on a nuclear bomb smuggled into and detonated at a football game^*identified as the Super Bowl in the novel but unnamed here the President is attending.
• Talking through Technique: When satellite photographs show Russian tanks still parked at their bases and not mobilized, Jack theorises that this inaction is a message from the Russian President, firstly affirming that he does not have warlike intentions, and secondly quietly stating that he did not order the recent attacks.
• Those Wacky Nazis: An atomic bomb is smuggled into the U.S. by a group of German neo-Nazis, who expect the Americans to blame the destruction of Baltimore on Russia, leading to a war that would destroy or cripple both nations, leaving a power vacuum in which a new Reich can arise. In Tom Clancy's novel, the villains were not Nazis but Palestinian extremists.
• Thrown from the Zeppelin: A variant occurs when one of the Russian scientists decides to opt-out. The villain's butler first helps him put his jacket on, then strangles him with his own scarf right in front of the other scientists before any of them can have second thoughts.
• The Usual Adversaries: Lampshaded when Bill Cabot remarks how their nuclear emergency drills always include the Russians as the enemy.
  Cabot: We've also gotta choose someone else to face off against besides the Russians all the time.
• War for Fun and Profit: The villain is an Austrian neo-Nazi, trying to incite war between Russia and America, in the hopes that by destroying each other, they'll pave the way for the resurgence of a strong (and fascist) Europe.
• The War Room: The National Military Command Center (NMCC) inside The Pentagon, as featured in this film, is a direct subversion to this trope. The movies's director, Phil Alden Robinson, says in the commentary that when he visited the real thing during pre-production he was so underwhelmed by what he saw, a sterile and boring office landscape, and liked it in a good way because it was so contrary to the typical Hollywood portrayal. Tom Clancy also liked it due to the authenticity it brought.
• World War III: What the villains are trying to instigate, and the protagonist is trying to prevent.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Spassky, Orlov and Milinov are killed once they've built the bomb. The same thing happens to the American conspirator Mason after he delivered the bomb to the stadium.

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"Our most basic common link... is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish... our children's future. And we are all mortal."