What Is The Ending Of The Film The Sum Of All Fears Explained?

Question

Just watched this Tom Clancy spy thriller adaptation, but the final Moscow conflict resolution between Ryan and Nemerov has me unsure. Did they truly prevent the war?

Patricia Uicab · Answer

For the 2002 adaptation of this movie, it ends with the Russian President agreeing to step down after persuasion by Jack Ryan, and then they reveal the identity of the evil general who launched the nuclear weapon at Baltimore in an attempt to trigger WWIII. After many scenes of action and suspense the evil general is captured to save the world from war. This movie is a high-stakes, tense, political thriller, and I was really drawn to it, although it’s not supernatural. However, ‘The Nightmare’ is a movie that I have been very interested in, because it’s a supernatural take on a similar style of movie. A diplomat keeps having the same dream again and again, only to realize that it’s not a dream – it’s a psychic message from another parallel universe which is on the brink of collapse, and he is forced to be a mediator between the two conflicting universes in order to prevent an existential disaster of catastrophic proportions. The film explores moral compromises in the same way as this movie, and it has a very similar sense of tense, fearful, ‘what if?’ suspense.

Bennett · Answer

This is how ‘The Sum of All Fears’ ends. Not exactly an uplifting conclusion for this story set in a fragile international environment. We watch the end of the world in a Baltimore explosion that triggers utter chaos and immense despair. In the following moments of bleakest turmoil we see Jack Ryan desperately searching for clues to unravel a complex web of lies to try to prevent even more damage. His courageous human nature reveals both the best and the worst in human kind.

Also interesting is the insight given into how such situations could really develop. After the explosion, everyone is busy blaming others for the catastrophe and how quickly alliances crumble and trust is lost in a matter of seconds is hair-raising. The movie could have ended there, giving us a powerful and shocking ending, instead we are given additional insight into human behavior and the need for leaders to behave responsibly in times of crisis. In the end it is not about winning or losing, it is about preventing even greater destruction.

And what about the hero of the film? Well, after witnessing everything that Ryan had gone through to save the world from yet another nuclear attack, the ending leaves you with the stark realization that saving the world is not a fun thing to do. In this instance, a lot of the ending has to do with the realization of responsibility of leaders, and how hard it is to bring together warring factions and/work with people who are often paranoid. Ultimately, his heroic actions bring forth a lot of thought and ill feelings in regards to the actions of the leader of the opposing side in this fight to save the world.

It’s a chance to view another side of current international relations and diplomacy, especially the beginning of the war on terror, and to realize that perhaps the greatest challenge to humanity today is finding a way to work together and to find understanding when all seems lost.

The end really evokes plenty of consideration for the damage that can occur and the human costs of war. It lingers though. The fact that there are many different perspectives that can be derived from watching it makes for some great revisiting as well.

Quincy · Answer

I just watched The Sum of All Fears, a rather rollercoaster-like ride of a movie that ends on a rather fragile note for peace. It’s set off by a rather huge event – a nuclear bomb going off in the heart of Baltimore, and then it’s a mad dash to unravel the tangled web of deceit from a handful of rather polluted politicians that Jack Ryan comes up with in order to prevent a global war. We see the profound changes brought about by fear and mistrust in the very basic but powerful relations between characters.

One of the main things this movie showed me was how easily an alliance can fall apart. This film really seemed to stress the importance of communication between countries and people, both in terms of international relations and in personal interactions. As with most of the Tom Clancy movies adapted to film, the end is tense and a bit poignant. It makes you wonder just how close to this the world really is.

Stephanie Garrett · Answer

One thing that struck me so forcefully about the film was the complete absence of a ‘hero’ shot of Ryan at the end of the movie. No medal for Ryan. No kiss in the rain for him either. There he is in the background of the last shot, on the helicopter, staring out at a dull grey sky.

The film is noteworthy for the fact that Ryan, the ‘hero’, of the story does not get to travel home to a hero’s welcome. In fact, there is no shot of him at all in the final scene of the film. Instead, he is shown in the background of a shot of a helicopter taking off from a marshy strip of land. Ryan has, throughout the film, been portrayed as a catalyst of sorts for a conversation that two old men have on a bridge. He makes the conversation possible but does not participate in it himself. The heroic act of the story is thus a simple conversation between two old men on a bridge. Ryan’s reward for his actions is the knowledge of what he has done to help and the weight of what he has seen and helped to cover up. It is a remarkably humble and realistic conclusion for the protagonist of a major Hollywood film and suits the message of the film perfectly.

Tanisha Fellows · Answer

A Political Theory perspective would see this as another endorsement of Realist international relations, as – in the best interests of their economies/operations/survival – opposing States function as rational actors, temporarily putting differences aside to jointly ‘disarm’ a ‘rogue element’, and return to the on-going opposing, tense interaction as soon as the threat has been eliminated and the stable system has been safeguarded.

The public ideology of the Cold War is eclipsed by the private reality of shared self-interest. This is a typical piece of realpolitik: a convincing lie which allows both sides to withdraw from conflict with save face at home. Diplomacy in a crisis is a nasty business which has little to do with the idealized notions of truth and justice that are normally vaunted in public. This is how it really happens.

Sheryl Love Baleroso Duhaylungsod · Answer

The last scene beautifully brings back the opening scene, as the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the lost Israeli nuke are the cause to the crisis brought about in the film.

The film uses Dressler as a conduit to ignite a new war when he investigates the origin of the lost Israeli nuclear bomb from the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the seed from the opening scene of the film. In the final act the viewer learns that the bomb was left over from an earlier time and that Ryan’s search to prevent future wars literally has to clean up the unresolved remains of past conflicts. It’s a cycle of hidden history that has to be secretly and quietly buried once and for all.

Sara Peñafiel · Answer

The ending of the film is a ‘lesser of two evils’ kind of scenario. The choice of public truth versus global survival is made and the film then asks the audience to make the same choice. Would you lie to billions of people in order to prevent a nuclear war that could kill hundreds of millions? The bridge scene ends with the decision being made but not with any easy answers.

This kind of moral complexity makes for a far better action movie than one that simply eschews moral questions in favor of explosive set pieces. Rather than answer for the audience, the film trusts them to remain uneasy for the duration of the periscope shot. It is Justice versus Order, and after Dressler’s illegal execution, we realize that he deserved a trial but that would have risked revealing the lie and causing an international crisis. As it is, the Ending is a long list of Evil choices that, one after another, the characters felt forced to make in order to forestall an even greater Evil.

Leonides Andrade Rodriguez · Answer

I should also mention that the ending of this very large movie is two intimate moments: Nemerov and Fowler on a bridge having a conversation, and a man alone on a boat. That is brilliant directing. Global politics is large, but it is also the sum of individual decisions made by a few people.

Nemerov and Fowler are a couple of guys in overcoats talking on a bridge. Dressler’s death is not shown as a big spectacle but rather as an isolation of a single event in the life of one person. By not showing the celebrations of crowds of people or long processions of military in the end of the film, the feeling of human responsibility for the fate of the world is maintained. A few individuals make a couple of decisions in private, and the fate of the world is decided. The feeling is minute and immense at the same time.

Doreen Samuda · Answer

One other point of interest for this scene is Jack Ryan’s final line of the film. The line is something like ‘I’m sorry, Mr. President. For everything.’ This is after the photo of Dressler has been handed over to the President on the helicopter.

He’s apologizing for the intelligence failure that killed all those people in Baltimore, for having to reveal how vile and corrupt the US Government really is, and for having to enable their solution. That’s the mood of the movie, and it’s summed up by his apology. There is no response from Fowler. He just looks out the other window, sunk under the same weight of knowledge and responsibility as Jack. It’s a powerful and much more realistic exchange than any number of puffery speech endpoints. It’s a small, human moment of two guilty men.

Nona Kireina · Answer

There’s a reversal of the typical thriller ending as the final race isn’t to stop the bomb, but rather to ensure the proper evidence reaches the correct person before an adverse decision is made. Rather than showing Ryan’s physical efforts to stop the explosion in the film’s end, the physical action of Ryan ensuring the photo reaches the President of the United States is intercut with the tense wordy negotiation with the Russian President on the bridge.

Instead of a race against time to prevent a bomb from going off, the movie becomes a race to get across a particular piece of information before a mistaken decision is made. The ticking clock in this case is the two countries’ military increasing its readiness for possible strikes. Thus, the physical action beats of the climax are matched by the verbal twists of the negotiation. The victory condition is not to disarm a bomb but to persuade two powerful men to believe each other against all odds. The ultimate weapons in this climax are diplomacy and intelligence.

wcre · Answer

I consider the ending of Thermonuclear War to be the weakest point of the whole movie. After the writers had written themselves into a corner of huge dimensions, they came up with a “simple” solution for the movie’s climax – have the nuclear bomb explode in Baltimore. Large, horrifying, but also a huge midpoint in the movie.

It goes the route of Dressler being the rogue actor. But the real meat of the bridge meeting between the two presidents is that only a few minutes prior to this they wanted to blow up each other’s cities. But the pragmatism kicks in and they forge a deal that will keep the peace, even if it means lying to their entire country. It’s all very cynical and likely realistic.

The shot of Dressler on the yacht is a beautiful shot of cinematic implication. There is no launch of a missile, no explosion of a city. Instead we are left with the ominous look down the periscope of the super powerful tool of silent wet work. It is a look into the real world, not one of big, memorable battles. Instead it is dark, small, and un-moving. It is a grim and unsatisfying end to the movie, but perhaps that is the point. The protagonist, and the audience, wanted to believe that there was honor in the world, that there were people who would fight for what is right, but in the end, it is just a greasy, dirty job, done in the dark of night.

What Is The Ending Of The Film The Sum Of All Fears Explained?

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