Directed by: Phil Alden Robinson
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Ben Affleck, Liev Schreiber, James Cromwell, Philip Baker Hall, Alan Bates, Ken Jenkins, Ian Mongrain, Russell Bobbitt
Plot hole: When the President of the United States attends a public gathering (such as the SuperBowl) the level of security is extremely high. So why wasn't Mason's delivery on the day of the game checked for explosive devices?
Plot hole: The bomb is found by Bedouin in the Golan (north of Israel). However, it was dropped in the Negev desert (south of Israel). How the bomb managed to move itself 500km is not clear. And Bedouin don't live in the Golan.
Revealing mistake: In the scene where Jack Ryan uses the radio after the helicopter crash, the film is reversed - the word frequency appears as a mirror image.
Jack Ryan: General, the President is basing his decisions on some really bad information right now. And if you shut me out, your family, and my family, and twenty-five million other families will be dead in thirty minutes.
Trivia: Ben Affleck is the third actor to play Jack Ryan. His predecessors are Harrison Ford (Clear & Present Danger, Patriot Games) and Alec Baldwin (The Hunt for Red October).
Question: As President Fowler is being escorted from the football stadium, he tells Cabot to "get the people out of here." How did the President know that the bomb was in the building? No one in the scene knew its exact location, so why does he think that if the fans leave the stadium they will be safe?
Answer: The President telling Cabot to "get the people out of here" is just a political life boat. If asked what he did when he found out about the bomb he can "honestly" say he asked for an evacuation.
It's unlikely at such a time of panic that one would consider a 'political life boat'. There's also nothing in the character as presented to suggest that would be his thought process. The president's just been told that there's a bomb in Baltimore (not the building) and says "get those people out of the stadium." He's being evacuated from a location that contains thousands of other people. It's fair to assume he knows all those people are also in danger so wants them evacuated too.