With help from hackers and other techies at Langley, Ryan realizes that his superiors and maybe even the president are not only abusing their powers but endangering the lives of innocents in the company of Escobedo, a drug lord who presents less of a threat to American peace of mind than coffee advocate Juan Valdez. Clark (Willem Dafoe), a CIA field agent equipped with high-tech communications gear, commands a handpicked mission from his hotel room. When Ryan and his people link the murder to a Colombian drug lord, Ernesto Escobedo (Miguel Sandoval), the president indirectly authorizes the national security adviser (Harris Yulin) and a CIA deputy director (Henry Czerny) to conduct covert retributions in South America. While Ryan's beloved mentor bravely suffers through chemotherapy, Ryan investigates the murder of a prominent businessman with close ties to the president (Donald Moffat). James Greer (James Earl Jones) is hospitalized with pancreatic cancer. Merely an analyst in 'Patriot Games,' Ryan is here promoted to acting deputy director of intelligence when Adm. Harrison Ford stars as the CIA's answer to Columbo, the rumpled superspook Jack Ryan, for whom every day is a bad hair day. It is probably also the first espionage thriller to climax in a mouse-to-mouse cyber-feud. More a cerebral dilemma than an action-packed adventure, the film explodes from time to time, but mostly takes place in offices.

In reality, intelligence agency may have become something of an oxymoron, but not in the clandestine universe of Phillip Noyce's 'Clear and Present Danger,' an absorbing, if overlong adaptation of Tom Clancy's bestseller. Children under 13 should be accompanied by a parent

Tom clancy's clear and present danger