The Hunt for Red October (1990)

The Hunt for Red October. Not quite a Film review. This film had come to my attention (although i had seen it numerous times previously) after reading through an article at Cinematical about the authenticity of a particular accent used in film. The film had came up in the article due to Mr.Sean Connery, he with that thick Scottish accent who was a Russian sub-marine officer in this film.

This film was my favorite John Patrick Ryan film by far. I'm also on a strong opinion that compared to Harrison Ford, and Ben Affleck, Alec Baldwin was a far superior Jack Ryan. Added to that, the novel itself, which was among the earlier Tom Clancy's work was one of my favorite as well.

In the forementioned article earlier in this paragraph, it mentioned about how John McTiernan shifted the Russian dialogues to English. The last time i saw this film, which was years ago i couldn't really remember, i hadn't paid any attention to it. Therefore, when i saw the film for the n-th time yet again yesterday with all the intention to paid an extra attention to how the dialog changed, i paid an extra attention to the Russian dialogue. I'm no Russian, of course, which made me pretty much clueless about wether the Russian used in this film, especially ones which were spoken by Mr.Connery was as good as you could get or simply a pathetic imitation. However, i've always loved to hear Mr.Connery's accent, therefore, whatever came out of his mouth would be decorated in flowers and tasted like honey which made me completely sold on him beign a genuine Russian. Mr.Connery spoke few Russian words in the earlier part of the film, but with one subtle camera work from John McTiernan - which you had to see it for yourself, unfortunately - the dialog was shifted to English.

This was in a day when even if the film-makers understand that most of its viewers were too distracted - or too lazy - to read subtitles, they still put an extra-effort to provides some kind of a somewhat acceptable explanation to the great question of "why does everybody talked in English even if he is a Russian officer in an Russian flagship submarine?" to provides - again, a somewhat resemblance of an authenticity to a film. In The Hunt of the Red October, John McTiernan's approach to 'made' the Russian crew and officers talked in English was rather hilarious IF you knew that you're looking for its not-too-subtle of said change in the first place. Otherwise, given the nature of the film, it probably left mostly un-noticed.

In my office, it has become an undisputed fact that i was the 'go-to-guy' when it comes to film. I would had this question almost every Fridays of wether this particular film worth her money or not. Just recently, when 10,000 B.C hits the theater, i was un-equivocally expressed my contempt with the film. When asked, "Why? You haven't seen the film, why would you say that the film was bad?", i would firmly elaborate my experience when i first saw the trailer of the film. The first part of trailer wasn't that bad, actually, but when a character spoke, that was what ruined the experience. When she hears my explanation, she had this look on her face which says, "weirdo". But then again, this was coming from someone who hadn't seen Transformers for she thought that it was too manly, and hadn't seen Apocalypto, the first film that came to mind when i was asked about the most recent film with its lingua authenticity. Point being, i'd like to think she was one of those casual viewers. Later on, of course, you know that 10,000 B.C was a painful experience. Our protagonist tribe spoke in perfect English, their ally spoke in an accented English, and the designated antagonist tribe spoke in utter gibberish. Boo hoo. So much for authenticity. Might as well made the character in the film pointed out that they actually know that they were living in the year 10,000 B.C.