The Hunt for Red October

Bomb Rating: 

What's long, hard, and full of seamen?

Q: What's long, hard, and full of seamen?

A: This movie, which is so phallic that you can sit any two Longshoremen in front of it and within half an hour they'll begin trading backrubs and referring to each other as "snookums" and "chubby bear."

Take into account the vast numbers of long, hard, seamen-filled objects scurrying about in dark uncharted waters shooting at each other, factor in the absolute absence of women, and one quickly concludes that this John McTiernan film based on a Tom Clancy novel isn't as much a Cold War action-thriller as it is a touching, right-wing attempt to confront repressed homosexual longings. After all, this is a film made by the director of "Die Hard."

The evidence for this conclusion is overwhelming. A long, hard, seamen-filled object has disappeared from the Russian Navy and through a series of assumptions based on an almost intimate understanding of the ship's captain, Marko Ramius (Sean Connery), CIA operative Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) concludes that Ramius intends to "go over to the other side." We all know what that means.

When Ryan finally boards Bart Mancuso's (Scott Glenn) long, hard sub, they track Ramius's long, hard sub, and much to Ryan's delight, nearly ram their nose into its ass. Consider for a minute some of the names: Ramius. Take out the "i" and you have "ram us." Ramius's best buddy and second-in-command is Capt. Borodin (Sam Neill), whose first name is Vasily. Finally, there's the man trying to hunt Ramius down, Capt. Tupolev (Stellan Skarsgard). Tupolev spelled backwards is Veloput. Veloput translated from a relatively unknown Azerbaijani dialect means roughly "suckle my farm rooster." Let's face it: If you really, really, really like this film, it's time to get together with the guys for a serious round of self-examination.

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