The Fourth Protocol (1987)

Frederick Forsythe is always a reliable and successful writer, and many of his spy thriller novels have been made into movies. I would guess that Forsythe provided the inspiration for Tom Clancy and the people who wrote this script. There's quite a bit of technical stuff involved in this story of a KGB spy who is sent to England to detonate a nuclear device at the USAF base at Baywaters, England, the base I always thought was at Bayswater. No matter.The KGB man is Pearse Brosnan and the British counter-terrorism agent who tracks him is Michael Caine, redoing his Palmer number from "The Ipcress File," only with more raucous animation.It's pretty involving. After all, the stakes are high. The explosion will devastate everything within a two-mile radius and kill upwards of 5,000 people.And there are exciting action scenes, especially a van in pursuit of a motorcycle and the inevitable final shoot out, with the wounded Brosnan's fingertip straining to reach the button that will detonate the fiendish device.There are a couple of types of villains in movies like this. One is the suave and debonair type -- George Sanders or James Mason, maybe, in "North by Northwest." Then there's the jocular, almost likable type of killer, always a smile and a wisecrack, like John Travolta in "Broken Arrow" or Jack Nicholson as The Joker. Finally, there's the type that Brosnan fits into in this film -- determined, distant, touched by passions perhaps but only by selfish ones, and absolutely determined. It might be the assassin in "The Day of the Jackal" or Arnold in "The Terminator." Brosnan is actually quite good. He has a pretty face and is capable of an icy demeanor, the kind that brushes away the caressing hand of a pretty neighbor because she doesn't fit into his plans. And there has never been a movie that was torpedoed by the presence of Michal Caine. Caine also gets a bonus point for doing a fine drunk. He's hilarious. He wobbles when he walks and his voice gets high and cracks.I've seen this twice. The first time made more of an impression. The second time, oddly, I found myself getting confused about some of the intricacies of the plot. But it was still enjoyable.

Frederick Forsyth's bestselling novel is here brought to the big screen with an all-star cast, but despite occasional moments of excitement it is not a film that genuinely gets the blood pumping. While the intricate build-up of detail and suspense made the book absorbing, in the film it merely creates a cold, dry and rather plodding atmosphere. The film has an old-hat feel to it, for it pursues a storyline that has been done to death over the years. If you think about it, we've seen stories like this countless times: Rod Steiger plotting to blow up Parliament in "Hennessy"; Edward Fox plotting to assassinate De Gaulle in "Day Of The Jackal"; Bruce Dern planning a terrorist attack on the Superbowl in "Black Sunday"; Steven Berkoff wanting to decimate an American air base with an atomic bomb in "Octopussy". This time, in "The Fourth Protocol", it is the turn of Pierce Brosnan to carry out yet another despicable plan against the civilised world. Genre addicts will probably enjoy the film, but for the majority of us it's a tired case of more of the same.Secret agent John Preston (Michael Caine) leads a raid on the apartment of an idealistic government bureaucrat, George Berenson (Anton Rogers). In Berenson's safe, Preston discovers some top-secret documents containing sensitive information about NATO activities in Britain. When confronted, Berenson claims that he has been passing the information on to a South African contact, but to his horror his South African "contact" turns out to be a Russian spy who has been forwarding the information to Moscow. As high-ranking Secret Service official Sir Nigel Irvine (Ian Richardson) tells Berenson: "you've undermined NATO.... perhaps irretrievably". Meanwhile, in snowbound Russia, deadly and highly decorated soldier Major Valeri Petrofsky (Pierce Brosnan) is briefed to carry out an audacious mission that could bring NATO to its knees. Petrofsky comes to Britain posing as a hard-working, unmarried model citizen and promptly buys a house that backs onto an American air base. Gradually he sets into motion his chilling plan, which involves triggering a nuclear explosion from his house, disguising his act to appear like a terrible accident that occurred at the base, thus strengthening the calls for NATO to be disbanded. Preston races against the clock to stop Petrofsky before his deplorable plan becomes a devastating reality.The cast perform decently enough, though there seems to be a certain degree of indifference, or perhaps unenthusiasm, from some of the stars. Ian Richardson probably has the best of it (he has a suggestive, sinister tone of voice and shifty eyes that make him perfect for these cloak-and-dagger roles), while Caine makes an amiable enough hero and Brosnan a fairly believable villain. Others fare slightly worse, like Ned Beatty as a Russian official with an over-prominent American accent, and Julian Glover as a bad-tempered Secret Service bigwig whose attempts to evoke anger would barely trouble a child, let alone his adult colleagues. John Mackenzie directs adequately but unremarkably, allowing the jigsaw pieces of plot to slot into place in a by-the-numbers fashion. The very concept of a nuclear strike within Britain is quite disturbing and exciting on its own terms, but the film never really sets the pulse fluttering. Some might argue that this kind of low-key, realistic approach provides a worthwhile contrast to the extravagance and excesses of a James Bond movie, and they'd have a point, but there's something just a little too mechanical and familiar about "The Fourth Protocol" for my liking.

I'm a big fan of Michael Caine's Len Deighton films - 'The Ipcress File', 'Funeral in Berlin' and 'Billion Dollar Brain' - even *if* the films got worse as they went along.Even though it's based on a Forsyth book, it's practically a 'return to form' for Harry Palmer - a conceit that's easily swallowed if you allow that Sgt. Palmer might have to assume more than one paper identity over the course of his career. Sir Michael is in top form here, as is Pierce Brosnan and one of my favorite British actors, Ian Richardson of 'House of Cards' fame.In fact, it's an altogether plausible thriller - until you get to the American actors. Sure, Ned Beatty and Joanna Cassidy are great actors - but whoever thought that Russian Intelligence agents, save for Brosnan, should sport American accents should be forced to spend a month in some inarticulate American suburb. It almost ruined an otherwise good film. When the round and blustered vowels were rolling out of Mr. Beatty's mouth, I had to wonder if the film were meant to be a dig at American influence over the UK, much like those xenophobic Japanese monster movies - Godzilla, etc. It was just a bit of a stumbling block to try to paint these Americans as Russians, when they weren't *trying* very hard to be Russians.A plus for this film was that it tried, somewhat, to depict the preparations that Brosnan had to make as an enemy agent. Not as meticulous as 'The Day of the Jackal', mind you, but it was on course. I recommend it to fans of cerebral, non-glamourous spy films.Harry Palmer is back, sort of.

I wouldn't consider this movie a "classic" or even particularly "great", but for some reason I really enjoy watching this film. I haven't read the book, however I used to own "The Fourth Protocol" computer game for the Commodore 64, and was vaguely familiar with the basic storyline.I can't pinpoint what exactly it is I like about this movie, but I did enjoy seeing Michael Caine as a British agent tracking down the nuclear bomb. I could probably watch a whole series of films based around his character. I also liked some of the other characters and I think it had a good cast of actors. The workings of government agents was very compelling to watch, but it was good to see that the film wasn't overwhelmed by ridiculous gadgets and stuck to the drama involved.The 80's technology in the film also had an element of nostalgia about it. This film reminds me of a bygone age of the BBC Micro and Ford transit vans. In fact, I love watching the film just to see the various parts of England as well.I liked the fact that its a rather 'quiet' movie, but I do think it needed to be re-edited. Some parts of the film just skimmed through major plot developments without giving them time to breath, and other times the film would show a character hopping from various locations in England without giving a sense of the travelling in between. Watching this film would give the impression that England is only about 10 miles wide! Some elements of the film really needed to be fleshed out a bit more.This isn't the sort of movie I would go to a cinema to see, its more of a "Friday night in" movie that I would watch on TV. I would only recommend it to someone if they were die-hard fans of this genre.