clear and present danger be full of great scene which never really come together to make a great movie . it try to tell too many different story and so and even with nearly two and half hour screen time and each story feel too short and incomplete . there be at least a half dozen major plot thread run concurrently while give the director credit for at least try to fit everything that matter in from another of tom clancy super fat bestseller . the other problem though be jack ryan ( harrison ford ) . he be not the action hero of patriot game . here and he be a dupe at first and then a decoy at the end and and in between sort of a standard issue government official ( albeit a rare honest one ) . john clark ( willem defoe ) be the close thing to a hero present . there be a large ensemble cast and everyone have a role to play and and ryan frankly be reduce to be just another member of that ensemble . in short and the u president order ( without state so explicitly and to cover his own butt ) a covert military operation against drug cartel in colombia . clark head up a small and elite squad that then begin go around blow up lab and generally disrupt the drug business . in apparent retaliation and the fbi director and his entourage be kill in their motorcade while on a visit to bogota . a cuban intelligence expert work for one of the drug lord approach national security adviser cutter ( the president right hand man ) for a truce and and a deal in exchange for his cut drug export to the u in half and he want the inserted military team cut off and abandon and so he can kill them . a mentioned and there be several other side plot ( admiral greer have terminal cancer and an fbi secretary be seduce by the cuban intelligence agent and murder ) so there be a lot of jump back and forth among the various player and situation . among the best scene be the ambush of the fbi director motorcade in colombia while very well stag and realistic and it a real nail biter of a sequence . but there be several other good action set piece a well . clear and present danger do not seem as long a it be . it just too bad the director and philip noyce and and the trio of screenwriter couldn not make the film a more cohesive package and find good way to pump up ford role . after the hunt for red october and patriot game and we have certainly come to expect more from the jack ryan character than to be a fall guy for a slippery prez and his corrupt underling and even if he belatedly turn the table on them .