When James Greer (James Earl Jones), the CIA’s deputy director of intelligence, gets sick, Ryan must fill in. It’s a role that makes him physically and ethically uncomfortable. An American businessman and his family are killed on a yacht in the Caribbean, and the slaughter smells of a drug-cartel hit. Since the man was a pal of the president (Donald Moffat), and the president got elected on an anti-drug platform, Ryan had better crack the case, fast. Armed with little more than his smarts and Greer’s laconic advice (“Watch your back, Jack”), that’s exactly what he does, dodging missiles, bombs and bullets, and – more to the point – muddying waters the weaselly prez wants to leave clear. For the enemy isn’t just a Colombian drug lord and his minions, but (surprise!) men in the U.S. government, especially a steely CIA madman, Robert Ritter (Henry Czerny).
“Danger” moves predictably, and it’s a little too complicated and slow for the genre, but director Phillip Noyce tightens key scenes, especially a taut computer battle between Ryan and Ritter. Despite some cardboard characters, the script, based on Tom Clancy’s best seller, is unusually literate. It’s the work of three master adapters: John Milius (“Apocalypse Now”) and Oscar winners Steven Zaillian (“Schindler’s List”) and Donald Stewart (“Missing”). Ford makes the most of it. When everything is falling apart, he says, with a hesitant shrug and a self-deprecating smile, “I hate this job.” It’s the kind of moment that eases the pain of paying $8 for a ticket. It’d be easy to hate Jim Carrey, but where’s the fun in that? Sure, his superstar-making turn in “Ace Ventura” was an aria of obnoxiousness. (Ben Kingsley was born to play Gandhi; Carrey was born to play Woody Woodpecker.) But if you limboed down to its level, you glimpsed what might be the second coming of Robin Williams. Like the young Williams, Carrey’s a pole-vaulter: no matter how high they set the bar, he goes over the top. In “The Mask,” he plays Stanley Ipkiss, who finds an ancient mask that transforms him from a trembling bank clerk into a libidinous superhero. The plot’s a throwaway: something about warring mobsters, a bank heist and a bombshell chanteuse (model Cameron Diaz, who’s pretty good once the camera stops feeling her up). Still, the movie’s so invincibly silly you’ve got to get on board or get out of the way. The masked man spins like a Tasmanian devil and rolls his tongue out like so much red carpet, but the real special effect is Carrey. He’s a fine mimic and a frenetic physical comedian, who ricochets through wacko character bits and sly movie references. Accused of pulling the bank job, he moans, “It was the one-armed man!” Then he leads the cops in a rumba number. “The Mask,” says the ad, is about going “from zero to hero.” Carrey himself has made that trip, and there’ll be no turning back.
