OP Center

The story is surprisingly non-cheesy, and well-crafted.

I liked this TV movie better than Tom Clancy's other book-into-film movies, "Hunt for Red October" and "A Clear and Present Danger." The extra screen time possible with a TV mini-series makes a mini-series the best way to film a long and complicated book. The acting was good and the photography and special effects were great.

Let me start off by saying that I saw the 114 minute long version of this film that was released on DVD. Everything in this review is based on that, as it is the only one I have seen. I have read two of Tom Clancy's OP Center books, so I knew most of the fictitious people before viewing this film, and I must say, it's quite fun to watch, having read so much about them... most even looked almost exactly like I imagined they would. The casting department did a great job on that... their work is quite impressive, with just about every single recurring character from the books being perfectly cast, as far as looks, type and personality goes. The plot is interesting, realistic and develops nicely throughout the entire film. The pacing is very good, it keeps you watching and stays quite intense more or less all the way through... blink once, and you might miss something crucial to the story. The acting is pretty much all top-notch, with almost no exceptions. They managed to get some fairly big names(well, for TV, anyway), too. The film has plenty of tension and suspense throughout, with a few scenes being packed to the limit with it. The action is great. Much better than in regular TV-movies. The special effects are also of unusually high quality. My only real problem with this film is that there's too little of it... it's clearly cut down from a larger product, and it feels like half a film as a result. I hope I'll get a chance to see a full mini-series one day. I would love to see the rest of this. I recommend this to any fan of Tom Clancy and any of his books. It's his style, through and through. Just make sure to see the full one... don't go for the shortened one I saw, if you can choose either. 7/10

Let me start by saying I watched the 114 minutes DVD-version and that's what I'll be reviewing.

Paul Hood is appointed Director of a special agency monitoring situations all over the world. It has hand picked expertise in all sorts of field and has the cooperation of all big agencies at their disposal. Their code-name: OP Center. On his first day Hood has to deal with a situation in Ukrania. Three nuclear warheads are stolen by ex-KGB agents. It's all up to OP Center to track them down and get them back.

The story is good, but the script isn't quite there. I missed the characters. You didn't get to know anything about them. You got to know a little about one or two, but not enough to get to know them. Now, remember I'm commenting on the DVD-version, I'll imagine you'll get more time to get to know the characters in a mini-series. Cause I was left with unexplained behavior by the characters and I wasn't impressed at all. The action is also weird. They're mostly in the command room and things are happening too fast. Now, you keep up with it it's not that, it's just that for instance too little time to come up with and execute a plan. They're jumping past many hours and you don't know what they did. Did they all go home to bed? It looks that way and I find that odd. And then there are some characters that you really don't know who is.

The actors are OK. They're not great, but they do a decent job. The lack of good character kind of takes the juice out of the actors. Harry Hamlin is good as Paul Hood.

What's probably the best thing about this movie is the cinematography. It's absolutely nice to watch. There are nice shots with nice composition and the little touch to it. The scenes are nicely lit, both day and night. The editing is all over OK, but there are something here and there.

The sets and decorations are OK. It's not the most recent movie so things look a little wannabe high-tech, but you don't really mind it. The look of the OP Center is good, with glass and a clean impersonal look to it.

The score is orchestral and has a proud military feel to it. It has a theme that you don't get hooked on, but recognize. It works good, but there are some places where they go away from the established sound and feel of the music and go for a more easy moody score. That sounded kind of odd, but it's minor details. All together with score and sound-mix, it's a movie that sounds good.

All in all OP Center is OK as a movie. There are some continuity and other goofs here and there, but it survives. What really kills this movie is the fact that it's not a movie. Cutting down a mini-series is a bad idea and it don't make a good movie. I guess the explanations to many of the characters behavior that I found strange lies in the lost screen time. My advise don't watch this movie, watch the mini-series.

Fortunately I recorded the full 170 minute mini-series version of this off TV a few years ago, and subsequently digitized it before the tape deteriorated too much. I just recently re-watched it and was pleasantly surprised at how well it still stands up over 20 years later. As I recall, there was a fair bit of criticism when it was first released, that it was too slow moving, too much talking heads and not enough action. I find these kinds of criticisms tend to come from people who lack the necessary attention span to follow a complex plotline. For mine, it like slow moving, detailed drama - it makes for a much better balance - the talking heads aspect makes a story like this more akin to reading a book, and in a sense more realistic.

I agree with the other reviewer who said the 170 minute version is nearly impossible to get. I have tried for several years to find it on DVD and on bit-torrent sites without any luck. I even looked for it in video rental stores (when they were still a thing). The 114 minute version is available, but you can't cut out 33% of a story and expect it to make sense... and it doesn't.