Storyline
A new, technologically-superior Soviet sub, the Red October, is heading for the U.S. coast under the command of Captain Marko Ramius. The American government thinks Ramius is planning to attack. A lone CIA analyst has a different idea: he thinks Ramius is planning to defect, but he has only a few hours to find him and prove it — because the entire Russian naval and air commands are trying to find him, too.
Directors
Cast
Tomas Arana, Sven-Ole Thorsen, Sven-Ole Thorsen, Courtney B. Vance, Philip Ettington, Alec Baldwin, Daniel Davis, Scott Glenn, Sam Neill, Fred Dalton Thompson, Rick Ducommun, Anthony Peck, James Earl Jones, Ronald Guttman, Tom Fisher, Stellan Skarsgård, Pete Antico, Tim Curry, Ivan G'Vera, Andrew Divoff, Jeffrey Jones, Boris Lee Krutonog, Sean Connery, Larry Ferguson, Peter Firth, Gates McFadden, Joss Ackland, Timothy Carhart, Ned Vaughn, Richard Jordan, Mark Draxton, Anatoli Davydov, Kenton Kovell
Trailer
Reviews
90
Variety
The Industrial Light & Magic special visual effects unit does yeoman work in staging the action with cliffhanger intensity.
89
This Tom Clancy thriller gets the proper screen treatment here with this first-rate cast and direction by one of the genre’s best: Die Hard director John McTiernan.
88
Chicago Sun-Times
A skillful, efficient film that involves us in the clever and deceptive game being played by Ramius and in the best efforts of those on both sides to figure out what he plans to do with his submarine - and how he plans to do it.
80
Time
McTiernan does not fall too much in love with any scene, character or gadget. He has judged his material (and our attention spans) very well. His alternation of menace and human interest, technological wizardry and action sequences is subtly calibrated, ultimately hypnotic in its effect. [5 Mar 1990, p.70]
80
This is a Reagan youth's wet dream of underwater ballistics and East-West conflict.
