
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 3, 1990                   TAG: 9003032788
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

'HUNT' ENTERTAINING, BUT NOT COMPELLING

After the first showing of "The Hunt for Red October" Friday, a friend on his way to the second showing stopped me and asked if he should go ahead with his plans.

After about 10 minutes of waffling, I told him I really didn't know.

It's that kind of movie. Moderately entertaining, but not compelling. Handsomely filmed on the one hand, and some special effects on the other that don't seem state of the art. At times suspenseful but not consistently so, if for nothing else its length of two and a half hours.

At the opening, we are told the movie takes place back in 1984 - long before events in Eastern Europe promise a Cold War thaw and not a nuclear meltdown.

The Red October, under the command of Marko Ramius, is a new and improved nuclear submarine with a silent propulsion system and the capacity to nuke much of the U.S. It's a first-strike weapon, designed to start and finish a war before the enemy can pull the trigger.

The sub starts off routinely on its maiden voyage, but Ramius has other plans. Through some careful maneuvering before and during the early stages of the voyage, he heads the vessel to America.

Is he a mad man out to start his own war? Or is he out to defect, delivering the sub into American hands thereby averting Armageddon? Who will get to him first - the Russians or Americans? And if nobody does, what will happen?

This maritime cliffhanger is based on Tom Clancy's best-selling, so-called techno-thriller. It's no surprise then that there's a lot of technical jargon in the script and that the visuals include a lot of computer info that flashes almost constantly on the screen. John McTiernan, who made the effective hardware thriller "Die Hard," is the director. McTiernan isn't able to make this one as tense, possibly because it's not a full-tilt gun movie like "Die Hard."

He has a top-notch cast though, and the script by Larry Ferguson and Donald Stewart has some humorous moments though they seem to smugly refect on their own cleverness.

Sean Connery, that Russian chaser from the first James Bond movies, plays Ramius, and he's an able, old sea wolf indeed. AlecBaldwin plays Jack Ryan, a CIA analyst and author who seems to be most comfortable in intellectual pursuits but who - like Indiana Jones - is cast into all kinds of hair-raising situations. James Earl Jones plays a Navy admiral, Sam Neill the second in command to Ramius and Scott Glenn an American sub commander. The supporting cast is capable as well, but none of the actors can fully emerge from the plot. The movie basically cuts from one crisis to another, and every resolution has to come down to the very last second.

"The Hunt for Red October" isn't a blockbuster suspense movie, but it's reasonably diverting entertainment. And if we're all lucky, it will represent the last of a genre - the Cold War movie that holds nuclear destruction over our heads to generate suspense. `The Hunt for Red October' A Paramount picture at Tanglewood Mall Cinema (989-6165). Rated PG for language and some violence and two hours and 30 minutes long.

by CNB