The Fourth Protocol (1987)

ridiculous rating

Fantastic!

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Oh Dear. When I noticed Caine's name in the credits as Executive producer I must admit my suspicions were aroused. What we have here is an example of outdated,cranky, clichéd, predictable Eighties Cold War nonsense rendered totally irrelevant by the historical events of the last 30 years and by the slick, modern spy thrillers of the last 10-15 years. My interest in the movie was only held by the presence in the cast of a pre-Bond Pearce Brosnan, the yummy, gorgeous Joanna Cassidy in her absolute 80s red-headed prime, and of course Caine himself, giving a great performance as the relentless, loyal, middle-aged MI5 operative (and surprisingly, apparently devoted father)Preston, determined to thwart a terrorist nuclear catastrophe in London, despite the efforts of his devious public school, anal Ox-bridge superiors to discredit him.

When this film was made nobody suspected that the Soviet Union would no longer exist in five years time; they were still the bad guys of choice for spy thrillers. Here a Soviet agent; Major Valeri Petrofsky has been tasked with a mission which if successful could spell the end of the North Atlantic alliance: his mission is to assemble a small nuclear bomb inside the United Kingdom and detonate it next to a US airbase... with the intention that everybody will believe it was an accident involving weapons on the base. Against him there is John Preston, a British agent, who stumbles upon the plot when one of the people bringing in one of the bomb components is killed in an accident.While there are a few plot holes it is possible to suspend ones disbelief as this is a fine thriller with great performances from lead actors Michael Caine and Peirce Brosnon who play Preston and the ice cold Petrofsky respectively. The action keeps up throughout the film from the start when traitor Kim Philby is killed to the end where Preston struggles with Petrofsky to prevent him detonating the bomb. That first scene was a bit of a problem for me however as it involved the killing of a real person who was very much alive at the time of the film's release; I think it would have been better to have had a renamed fictionalised version of him. Having recently watch Michael Caine play a similar role in the 1965 thriller 'The Ipcress File' it is great seeing that he can still be believable in such a role twenty years later.

We all know Freric Forsyth supposedly wrote great thrillers. Sadly I'm not sure this is the case in this instance. There were too many moments in the film where I wanted to say "what? that's never going to happen!!" Point in fact would be expecting everyone to believe that there was a nuclear accident in a housing estate.At 1.5kTon, it's only a small bomb. They say in the film the crater will only be "2 mile across" so investigators will rumble a rat strait up. Then assembling fissile material with out a containment or even protective clothing?? your kidding me right?Also the premise that an atom bomb will go off by mistake. Atom bombs are incredibly difficult to explode unless you get stuff to happen just right. So that is a plot fault for starters. Sheesh...I liked the ideas that all the agent managers were self serving prats, though Forsyth's portrayal of all the Russian characters as cold automatons is a bit dated, probably even by 1987 cold war standard. Michael Cain doing his best "Micheal Cain" is well worth a star or two though.A final thought... Mr Mackenzie, if you are going to show a woman with magnificent breasts topless, allow her to sit or stand in the shot. Large breasts prone do not do them selves any justice at all.a.

My personal view is that Caines interpretation of the character made TFP one of his best films to date, it reflected the Forsythes hero very acurately and was easily the best performance of the film. Again, my view is that the film was grossly under rated by the critics at the time and even today stands up well among films of this type. Well worth watching even today.