The Fourth War

The plot is absurd, the logic is absent and the running back and forth across the east-west border is laughable.

BUT - it's one of the greatest movies ever made anyway. Why? Because it got a view through correctly adjusted binoculars right! As 1 circle. NOT 2 touching circles.

Million dollar movies, close to billion dollar movies from Hollywood, can't even get this simple fact right and it annoys me immensely. The annoying thing is that directors can get access to so much money and are not intelligent enough to get it right. If they spend a hundred dollars more they could buy a consultant to tell them things like that! But the directors are too dumb! Amazing.

So a big HOORAY for The Fourth War!! The ONLY other film I remember that avoids this Hollywood dumb cliché is The Bridge On The River Kwai.

And that's not all folks. The Fourth War lets the Russians speak Russian. I'm close to tears with enthusiasm! In the Hollywood world where Germans, Russians, Chinese and every alien from outer space speaks American this is groundbreaking. I know that most Americans are too dumb to read subtitles (or rather Hollywood think they are) but it renders authenticity in wast amounts to a movie.

The ridiculous script is totally forgiven on these two grounds!!

It's November 1988. Col. Jack Knowles (Roy Scheider) is newly assigned to a base in West Germany. He is a hardened warrior frustrated with the lackadaisical attitude of his soldiers. Most want him to relax his intensity as relationship with the Soviet Bloc warms up. He grows angry as a defector is shot dead by men under Czech Col. Valachev (Jürgen Prochnow) right in front of him at the border. He decides to go on his own infiltration mission into enemy territory.

This movie is obviously diffused by real world events. The Berlin Wall literally fell four months before the release of this movie. That's why an opening text was added to place this movie in 1988. The movie retains its logic in that sense but it loses its reality to the audience of its day. There was a few similar cold war thrillers that became out-of-date by the time they got released. It's not their fault but it cannot be discounted.

As for the movie itself, it has great potential as a dive into the psychology of an obsessed warrior but it becomes a clown crossed with Rambo. It's too silly and serious while being unrealistic all at the same time. The only action I truly love is the helicopter landing. The helicopter is hovering around with real intensity like it's going to hit the ground. The movie closes by paraphrasing Albert Einstein, "I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." It misunderstands the quote by trying to tie it to that final fight. It's obviously an important theme for the movie which makes the flawed understanding a little problematic. All in all, the movie has problems and struggles to compete with real world events.

Jack Knowles serves in the army as a colonel on the German-Czech border. He not only fights in the Cold War, but also wages his own personal war with his Russian equivalent Colonel Valachev. Both are embittered and hardened by their war experiences and when the battle between the two breaks out, things go from bad to worse.

It is a bit of an unbelievable story, The film apparently tried to spice up the end of the Cold War that slowly bled to death in the mid-80s with a strange but interesting story about two alpha males who start a childish private war, it sounds a bit far-fetched but it is still a scenario that could have been done with something interesting, but lack of character development of both main characters is unfortunately the big shortcoming.

But still the mutual battle between Schneider and Prochnov is interesting enough for a reasonably entertaining hour and a half, nothing more, nothing less.

Throw out logic, and enjoy the absurdity of "The Fourth War". The acting by Roy Scheider, and especially Harry Dean Stanton is terrific. The snowy landscapes are photographed to best advantage. Now about the story. Scheider is a maverick Army Comanding Officer on a personal vendetta against the Russians across the Czech border. His wild jaunts into Communist territory provokes a Soviet Officer, Jurgen Prochnow to respond. Their personal battle eventually escalates toward an international incident that threatens to erupt into war. If you allow yourself to be drawn into the maniacal plot, while overlooking the implausibilities, there is dark humor, and a creative story to enjoy. - MERK

John Frankenheimer is an amazing director who has never been given the credit that he deserves. The Manchurian Candidate, Birdman Of Alcatraz, Seven Days In May and Black Sunday are among the great films that he has directed. This film deserves to be listed with them as well because it is a brilliant parable of what happens when two heroes only trained to fight in war have to live in a peacetime situation. Roy Schieder gives an awesome performance as a war weary colonel who just can't function in a peacetime setting. That very great character actor Harry Dean Stanton has a great scene where he chews him out. I think that the most chilling part of the film however is the one where Stanton quotes Albert Einstein when he was asked what kinds of weapons would be used in World War III and he replied that he did not know but that the fourth war would be fought with stones.