As an 11-year-old kid, in the dark with my parents at the Town and Country theater in Mishawaka, Indiana, I didn’t really “get” Red October. My brain was telling me it was an action movie, but there was hardly any action. My brain was telling me it was a spy movie, but there wasn’t really any spying. I was used to Die Hard and Top Gun, Aliens and Star Wars. And endless James Bond flicks! What was this thing supposed to be? As the author of the article astutely points out, it’s a film about “smart people talking.” And as I got older, I came to realize that is the best kind of film.
Baldwin’s CIA analyst and Connery’s Russian submarine captain are both men trying to figure each other out, and with nuclear weapons at stake at the height of the Cold War, the victor in that mental game literally has the fate of the world riding on his shoulders. Red October has a slick technicality to it that, surprisingly, despite the incredible advancements in technology in the last 25 years, still holds up very well on screen. It has an excellent ensemble of character actors—Scott Glenn, Sam Neill, Fred Thompson, Courtney B. Vance, James Earl Jones, and more—that brings weight and import to each line of sharp dialogue. And the film is actually quite funny. There are a number of excellent one-liners that take you by surprise but seem completely appropriate based the intellect of the speaker. “You've lost another submarine?” "Russian doesn't take a dump without a plan." “Some things in here don't react well to bullets...yeah, like me.” Perfect.
It’s a shame the rest of the Tom Clancy-inspired franchise never lived up to the greatness of the original. Young Alec Baldwin will always be Jack Ryan to me. And Red October is a great reminder that superhuman stunts and preposterous villains and CGI overkill can ruin a superb action movie. An action movie in which smart people talk is more than enough. Check out the article, and check out the film again. You’ll be glad you did.