World
War III could emerge if a terrorist set off a nuclear bomb
in the United States, which in turn became convinced that
Russia was behind the plot. That is the premise in Tom Clancy's
novel The Sum of All Fears, which director Phil Alden
Robinson has now brought to the screen. As credits roll, we
view scenes from the Yom Kippur War of 1973, including an
Israeli nuclear bomb that was supposedly carried aboard a
plane bound for an enemy target. When the plane is shot down,
the undetonated bomb falls somewhere in a desert; sand covers
the bomb until later someone digs up the weapon, which he
sells to an arms merchant. When the film begins, CIA analyst
Jack Ryan (played by Ben Affleck) and CIA Director Bill Cabot
(played by Morgan Freeman) are on a trip to Russia to meet
President Nemezov (played by Ciarán Hinds). Russia
at the time is waging a war in Chechnya. Ryan learns that
three Russian scientists are missing, but nobody else seems
concerned. After their visit, the conflict in Chechnya involves
a major chemical warfare offensive; although Ryan believes
that the Russian military acted without consulting President
Nemezov, senior advisers to President Fowler (played by James
Cromwell) scoff at his assessment, based solely on his intuition
that the Russian president is a peaceful man who cannot control
his own military. Meanwhile, we view a German madman named
Richard Dressler (played by Alan Bates), who is hatching a
plot to inveigle the Americans and the Russians into annihilating
each other so that Nazi Germany will reemerge as the new superpower.
The plot involves American plutonium sent to Israel, which
is diverted through various channels to Dressler, who has
hired the three Russian scientists to activate the undetonated
bomb, whence the bomb is enclosed in a cigarette vending machine
that is imported into the port of Baltimore. After arrival
in Baltimore, the machine goes to the Superbowl football stadium,
timed to detonate during a game to be attended by President
Fowler. However, the disappearance of the three Russian scientists
puts Ryan hot on their trail, so in due course he learns that
they have constructed the bomb, which is headed for Baltimore.
Through channels he alerts President Fowler, who is whisked
to safety just in time as the nuclear bomb actually detonates.
Fowler's advisers then urge him to prepare for a response,
as do President Nemezov's advisers. Unlike the cautious, methodical,
step-by-step approach taken by President John Kennedy and
Chairman Nikita Khrushchëv in the Cuban Missiles Crisis
of 1962, the two leaders in The Sum of All Fears
behave less rationally; not only is there is more time pressure
to act quickly, but their advisers are putting their own egos
ahead of the fate of the world. Meanwhile, Ryan believes that
the bomb could not be of Russian origin, and evidence from
debris confirms his hunch, so after communicating his finding
to pigheaded American advisers who will not listen to him,
he alerts Nemezov. Russia then pulls back, and the American
president follows suit. At the end of the film, the two presidents
sign an agreement to dismantle all nuclear weapons as soon
as possible. As a terrifying scenario of what might conceivably
happen so long as nuclear weapons remain on the planet, the
Political Film Society has nominated The Sum of All
Fears for an award as best film on peace for 2002.
MH
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