The Fourth Protocol

Forget Brosnan's performance in the Bond movies or the recent excellent Tailor of Panama. His cold, calculative KGB agent in The Fourth Protocol should have told us what a wonderful actor he is. Made in 1987, the film is closer to its older brother (The Days of Jackal, also by Frederick Forsyth) than the spy films starring Michael Caine, as I originally thought it would be. The pace is slow, but thoughtful. Like Jackal, we get to see Brosnan making preparation to bring in the bomb and piecing it together. We also get to see Caine, 'the rebel' of M16 tracking him down. Great show!

Usually we get treated to one type of spy movie these days. This type is made up of good looking young agents with all sorts of high tech weapons and gear. There are beautiful women who are just lining up to sleep with the good guy. The Fourth Protocol is not one of these movies and thank goodness! It is one of the most realistic cold war spy movies out there. Despite it's age(1987) it is relevant to today's world. There is nuclear terrorism and real looking spies. Michael Cain plays a British agent and is too busy looking for Russian spies to be sexing up fine Russian female agents. In fact he has a family. He is excellent as the seasoned agent who uses his mind and not gadgets to track down the Russian spy played by Pierce Brosnan. For those of you who saw Brosnan in Tailor of Panama and found it refreshing to see him play a creep secret agent will be in for a real treat in The Fourth Protocol. Brosnan plays Petrofsky, a young hot shot KGB agent who tries to slice and dice his way to the top. I mean Petrofsky is a flat out cold blooded killer. He makes the guy in Tailor of Panama look like a saint. He has a conscience but he doesn't let it get in the way of his mission to explode a nuclear weapon on a US Air Force base in Great Britain in order to make it look like the US had a nuclear accident. Petrofsky was the right man for the job he would blow up two or three thousand people just like that. If he wasn't a KGB agent, he could surely find work as a serial killer.

The story moves along quickly and sometimes a bit too quickly. However it doesn't detract from the movie. The movie looks more like a cop movie in the way the investigation unfolds. When they finally find out what's going on there is a good action sequence that doesn't go over the top. It just serves the purpose in this movie. Other things I liked was the scene where they constructed the bomb.

I would recommend this one to anyone who likes spy movies and are tired of the James Bond rigmarole.

Rayvyn

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.

A Brit agent, MichaelCaine, suspects something big is being smuggled into England, and his guess is accurate, as he discovers an atomic bomb delivery, putting the world in nuclear jeopardy. The nasty plot is supervised by Russian agent Pierce Brosnan, a totally dedicated undercover officer assisted by a Russkie engineer : Joanna Cassidy.

Thriller about political fiction with chills, thrills, intrigue, twists and turns. Based on the famous Bestseller that Frederick Forsyth himself updated. Michael Caine is the principal component of this political thriller giving a nice and believable acting in his usual style as British agent attempting to stop a conspiracy from destroying NATO . While Pierce Brosnan is ultra-cool as Russian agent prividing one of the best performances to date. They are well accompanied by a nice plethora of secondary actors, mostly Brits, as Ian Richardson, Michael Gough, Julian Glover, Ray McNally, Betsy Brantley, Cartwright, Joanna Cassidy, Matt Frewer, though marred by odd casting as Ned Beatty who is really miscast as a high rank Russian General.

It displays a poweful and suspenseful musical score by Lalo Schifrin with his ordinary sounds and similar to Jerry Goldsmith . Moreover, colorful and evocative cinematography by Phil Meheux. The picture was nicely directed by John MacKenzie. This British filmmaker was a good professional who made some successes and flops . John began working in TV plays , which inspired him and gave him the best training to shot , it also taught him how to work quickly . Mackenzie was one of Britain's finest directors with nice results in his enjoyable films . He moved to length features decisively with his biggest hit : "Long Good Friday" , but a decade spent in Hollywood that proved to be unfulfilling , artistically , shooting failures as "Honorary Consul, "The Innocents" , "Blue Code" and "Ruby" . Although he was never achieved the recognition he richly deserves , he was a notorious director , though sadly deceased in 2011 at 72 years old . Rating 7/10 . Well worth seing. The yarn will appeal to Pierce Brosnan fans .

It is a while since I this film but the title is explained at the start of the film,a voice over and text on the screen says something about a treaty signed by the major powers during the cold war and mentions a secret "fourth protocol" that forbids the planting of small scale nuclear weapons in each others countries. Iiked this film but at the time (1987) many people said that Forysth was a right wing nut,he is but we know know that the USSR had all sorts of crazy ideas about attacking the west because they thought that the west was going to attack them first.

People who liked this fiom should also look out for THE WHILSTLEBLOWER ,another 1980s British spy movie with Michael Caine.