Parents' Guide to Patriot Games

For anyone who lived through the '90s, PATRIOT GAMES is an engaging, high-action, violent reminder of the fading memory of IRA bombings and terrorist plots, of America in the post-Cold War era. It also reminds us why Harrison Ford's mix of fluster and bravado made him so good at playing a family man in pretty much anything. Here, family values move to the fore as his raison d'être for sticking it to the terrorists, but, for a family movie, it's heavy on violence and probably requires some working knowledge of the aforementioned political landscape to follow. It also has tough scenes for parents, including a pregnant mother and child in a graphic car crash, some worrisome hospital scenes, and multiple scenes with a child under attack or a mom and daughter receiving death threats.

But for parents who love a good Tom Clancy novel or anything with Ford, it's an absorbing work that happens to eerily foreshadow some of today's drone technology and remote political warfare tactics. For mature teens who like historical political/spy thrillers, it can bring up some really interesting discussions about how we portray violence used to justify American patriotism versus the same violence when used to denounce any other country's nationalist fervor. Side note: With a surgeon for a wife and a daughter who crushes it at Monopoly and even a female terrorist plotting alongside the men, it is a rare bit of gender parity amid the bloodshed.