In Harrison Ford’s second outing as Jack Ryan, the senior analyst suddenly finds himself in the seat of the Deputy of Intelligence. Stepping in for his terminally ill mentor, Admiral Greer (James Earl Jones), Ryan must now butt heads with a stubborn President, a devious co-worker, and a conspiratorial National Security Advisor, while, at the same time, defusing a critical situation in Colombia involving a rogue Black Ops agent and a team of American soldiers who aren’t supposed to be there in the first place.

It’s all in a day’s work for Jack Ryan.

When a blood-drenched yacht belonging to a friend of President Bennett (Donald Moffat) is commandeered by the Coast Guard, the discovery that said friend and his entire family had been murdered by cartel thugs leads Bennett to entrust the “handling” of this situation to Cutter (Harris Yulin), his National Security Advisor.  Cutter and CIA Deputy of Operations Ritter (Henry Czerny) conjure up Project: Reciprocity, and call in John Clark (Willem Defoe) to assemble a team of elite soldiers and cripple the Colombian drug trade by force. 

Meanwhile, Jack Ryan is forced to take on the duties of the D.O.I, and, while in Bogotá, investigating the death of the President’s friend, discovers that the deceased was in cahoots with a cartel boss to the tune of $650 million dollars (and change).  While Bennett is surprised to find out about his friend’s indiscretions, he’s thrilled by the news of this potential financial blow to the drug lords. On the other side of the fence, however, Felix Cortez (Joaquim de Almeida) – intelligence officer for one of Colombia’s biggest cartels – is manipulating all of these events in order to further his own agenda of taking over the Colombian drug trade.

Now, with American soldiers waging an illegal war, and a corrupt political machine brokering deals that could very well leave those soldiers to die, Ryan’s own life is in danger as he threatens to expose those responsible.

Tom Clancy’s novelization of Clear and Present Danger is a fast-paced and frenetic thriller that features so many major and minor “players” that it’s a wonder that director Phillip Noyce was able to faithfully (and coherently) bring the novel to such vivid life. Of course, Noyce wasn’t able to give Clark and his military team as much of a presence as they had in the novel (their mission is very compelling and exciting stuff), but we get the highlight reel, so to speak, and it provides a great counterbalance to Ryan’s more “clerical” approach while also freeing up more time to really get to know Felix Cortez (who, in the novel is essentially the Moriarty to Ryan’s Sherlock Holmes). The only characters who really get the short shrift are Cutter and Ritter, the former of which isn’t really as black and white about things as he appears in the film (although we are given a couple of scenes in which he looks rather exasperated and conflicted about things). Still, this is about as faithful as one can be to a Tom Clancy novel without going over the dreaded 3-hour mark (this one comes in at around 2 hours and 20 minutes).

I was impressed with the transfers for Patriot Games and The Hunt for Red October, but I’m quite frankly floored by how good Clear and Present Danger looks on Blu-ray. I’ve read other reviews that have been critical of the techniques used to clean up this particular release’s source for the HD transfer, claiming it somehow looks “over processed”, but I don’t see that at all. The image here is sharp, clear, and brimming with the kind of detail that’s probably not been seen by eyes outside of the editing bay back when this film was originally spliced together. Colors are vivid and pop against deep, lush blacks, and intense greens. I only noticed one scene – where Jack first takes over Greer’s office – in which there was a contrast issue where the entire image seemed to darken abruptly, as though the backlight on my LCD dimmed (it didn’t, thank God). Otherwise, this is a damned fine looking print.

Slightly less impressive is the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack, at least in terms of the overall mix. Pumped up to “theater” volume, things sounded amazing, with pulverizing bass, soaring highs, and fantastic surround effects that had bullets ricocheting all around me. However, at “Jesus, honey! Turn that down, I have to work tomorrow” volume, I had to strain to hear some dialogue even though gunfire, helicopters, and explosions were still loud enough to wake up the wife. Still, It's hard to deduct points for this seeing as how the whole point of Blu-ray, home theater systems, and big screen television sets is to bring home the theater experience, which Paramount certainly did here.

Supplements are…well…not very supplemental. There’s nothing here but a short standard definition featurette called “Behind the Danger”, sporting interviews with the cast and crew, and an HD version of the film’s original trailer. Nothing to write home about, but still better than nothing at all.

While I still think “Patriot Games” and “The Hunt for Red October” are tied for the best Clancy adaptations yet, Clear and Present Danger comes a very close second, but bests those two in terms of its Blu-ray presentation. This flick looks awesome, sounds great (albeit at "My Neighbors Hate Me" volume), and is a must own for fans of the series.