Clear and Present Danger

Agent Jack Ryan becomes acting Deputy Director of Intelligence for the CIA when Admiral Greer is diagnosed with cancer. When an American businessman, and friend of the president, is murdered on his yacht, Ryan starts discovering links between the man and drug dealers. As former CIA agent John Clark is sent to Colombia to kill drug cartel kingpins in retaliation, Ryan must fight through multiple cover-ups to figure out what happened and who's responsible.

A mostly well-received thriller that earns points for juggling multiple storylines without losing the audience, largely thanks to Phillip Noyce's disciplined direction. The main fault line in criticism runs through Harrison Ford's Jack Ryan himself — admirers found the political and technological spectacle engrossing, while detractors argued the film is all mechanism and no character, leaving its hero a hollow paragon of virtue with nothing human underneath.