MovieChat Forums > Clear and Present Danger (1994) Discussion > Why they changed the ending.

Why they changed the ending.

posted 8 years ago by gss2
4 replies | jump to latest

This movie was was much darker than the book was. The book blamed everything on Cutter, a rogue and naive naval officer. The film was a conspiracy inspired by Iran-Contra. The death of Felix was the death of Pablo Escobar which had not yet occurred when the book was written.

Also, this was about the time that the American public was catching on to the fact that the US government had something of a working relationship with the Colombian drug cartels. The book was kind of an apology for this fact, blaming it all on a few unethical individuals looking for career advancement and revenge. The film showed that it was much more than that. It was an ugly choice, but the best one given the circumstances.

[–] pritch636 8 years ago

Its a shame the special ops team was given up so cheaply by the script.
12 highly trained men would simply melt into the background and not be cornered so easily.

A long , slow but enjoyable film nonetheless.

[–] CatbirdBalou 8 years ago

The special ops team was given up by Cutter, who told Cortez where to find them. I thought it was at least somewhat plausible that they were caught in a narrow canyon with no escape route, and all but one of them were captured or died trying to defend themselves while waiting for the expected reinforcements.

[–] pritch636 8 years ago

Before the ops team was cornered , there's views of 1000's of massive trees and thick canopy of leaves and lushious sub shrubs.

There's just no way they couldn't have concealed themselves.

They were ghosts

[–] TandyMan (10419) a year ago

I think they said there was a 150 mercenaries at that camp. That's quite a force to descend on a small team. Especially when they know exactly where to pin them down.