Sommersby (1993)

From the back of the DVD: “People remember Jack Sommersby. They know him as a bitter, loutish man. But when Jack returns home after the Civil War, he's tender, caring and resourceful. Has the war changed him. or is the man calling himself Jack Sommersby an impostor?”

This is a brilliant drama starring Richard Gere and Jodie Foster as a married couple living in extraordinary circumstances. There are themes of identity running through it – Jack may or may not be who he says he is – and it also explores issues of race and personal relationships.

Foster and Gere are both excellent, juggling several plot threads: the story about who Jack is, the story of their marriage and the story of the town's agricultural fortunes. It’s moving and it keeps you guessing. 

James Earl Jones has gravitas as a judge, even if I can only hear him as Darth Vader.

The Hunt for Red October (1990)

Submarine drama adapted from a Tom Clancy novel and starring Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin. Connery is a Russian naval captain who wants to defect to the USA, but his actions threaten to bring about full-scale war. Baldwin is the CIA intelligence analyst who has to save the world.

The performances are reasonable (James Earl Jones and Joss Ackland also have roles), but there’s something missing. It’s probably unfair to compare this film to Das Boot or K-19: The Widowmaker, but I never once felt I was aboard an actual submarine. It’s oddly lifeless, with a lack of atmosphere and a certain stilted quality. This isn’t helped by Connery, whose “calm” manner is taken to extremes, resulting in merely an expressionless mask.

Motivations stay mysterious: we don’t learn why Connery wants to defect or how his staff feel about it. Nor do we discover why one of the sub’s cooks wants to sabotage the mission.

Another oddity is the use of subtitles in the early stages of the film. Once it has been established that these are Russians speaking, the subtitles cease and their dialogue reverts to English. That creates confusion later when subtitles return and it’s actually unclear which language Baldwin and Connery are meant to be speaking in. It would have been better to use the standard film trope of a non-English language simply being spoken in English – but with accents.

While there’s nothing really wrong with the film, and you could argue that it ticks all the right boxes for a Cold War thriller, ultimately it falls flat. But a more inspired director than John McTiernan could probably have made it work.

Coming to America (1988)

Silly romantic comedy. 

Eddie Murphy plays an African prince who – in order to escape an arranged marriage – travels from the fictional country of Zamunda to New York City to meet his bride. He wants to find someone who likes him for who he really is and not just for his money. 

Murphy is hugely appealing, as usual, but he’s operating on a higher level than everything happening around him. The “plot” is fairly lame and there aren’t enough laughs. It’s enjoyable if you can accept the usual 1980s aspirational fixation of upward mobility. 

What doesn’t work is that Murphy and co-star Arsenio Hall play a range of other minor parts for no apparent reason. It’s directed by John Landis, who certainly likes an in-joke (all of his films feature the phrase “See You Next Tuesday” in some form). He even revives the characters of Mortimer and Randolph (Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy) from Trading Places, which also starred Eddie Murphy. 

It’s entertaining fluff that’s fun to watch, but it’s probably not a film you need to see twice. Surprisingly, perhaps, a sequel was released in 2021.

Clear and Present Danger (1994)

Harrison Ford stars in this adaptation of a Tom Clancy thriller about a CIA man who gets involved in both a Colombian drug war and the murky secrets of the White House. Maybe it worked as a novel, but as a film it’s too long and too slow. Buried in there somewhere are two interesting stories – a guns ’n’ copters action plot and a political saga built around protocols that sadly seem almost quaint in the debased Trump era. Instead, you get a rather drab and convoluted mess that cannot satisfy. That said, Harrison Ford is as riveting as ever, Willem Dafoe isn’t bad as field agent John Clark and James Earl Jones is convincing as the dying Vice Admiral James Greer.