Le quatrième protocole

Based on the bestselling novel by thriller writer Fredrick Forsyth, The Fourth Protocol stands out as one of the last of the breed of Cold War spy thrillers. Set amongst the issues of 1980's Cold War tensions, the film is the story of a KGB plot to detonate an atomic bomb in the UK near a US Air Force base, causing the deterioration of NATO as a result if UK security services don't stop it first. With good performances and a fine script that make up for some of the films shortcomings, The Fourth Protocol is a good example of the Cold War spy thriller.

The films has good performances throughout. The cast is led by Micahel Caine and Pierce Brosnan. Caine is British agent John Preston, a bit of a loose cannon himself, who stumbles upon the plot and has to face his superiors skepticism before he can stop the plot. Brosnan is KGB agent Valeri Petrofsky who, masquerading as James Ross, is the man with the atomic bomb. The supporting cast is like a whose who of fine character actors including Joanna Cassidy, Ned Beatty, Julian Glover, Michael Gough, Ray McAnally and Ian Richardson. Sadly the actors playing Russian characters struggle with their accents at times but for the most part the performances work and help the film rather then hinder it.

For the most part the film has good production values. The direction of John Mackenzie, coupled with the cinematography of Phil Meheux, the production design of Allan Cameron and the costumes of Tiny Nicholls mean the the film has a very realistic feel to it. For the most part the editing of Graham Walker helps as well, especially in the sequence where the bomb is assembled by the Brosnan and Cassidy characters. Unfortunately there's moments where the editing is rather hap-hazard with scenes of Petrofsky on his motorcycle, then packing his car, then on his motorcycle again. Another example is the sequences involving the McWhirter couple (played by Matt Frewer and Betsy Brantley) with Petrofsky which, while a fault of the script admittedly, should have been cut from the film as they serve no purpose and slow down the film's pace. Even with the issues with the film's editing, the production values hold up well.

The film also has a fine script as well. Frederick Forsyth adapts his own best-selling novel, with help from writers George Axelrod and Richard Burridge. The script remains fairly faithful to the original novel though there are some significant differences (such as the amount of time spent investigating soviet agent Jan Marais at the beginning for example). This helps the film plot wise as it focuses the film more on the tense build-up to the possible detonation of an atomic bomb on British soil. The film nicely contrasts the arrival of the bomb's components from Petrofsky's side with Preston's attempts to derail the plot. The script also reveals a world of crosses, double-crosses and triple-crosses as the plot keeps getting more and more complicated as it goes on. The result is a well-written thriller.

With good performances, good production values and a well-written script from noted thriller Fredrick Forsyth, The Fourth Protocol is a good example of the Cold War spy thriller. Even with editing issues, the film is a well-paced and tense story of Cold War intrigue and a story of how things might have bee. Even more surprising is that despite its being entrenched in 1980's Cold War politics the films dealing with the on-going threat of nuclear terrorism means it has relevance over two decades later. Thus the film remains a tense, if somewhat dated, thriller.

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 .

Rogue spies try to undermine the Fourth Protocol, which is a secret agreement between the USA, Britain and Russia to cease smuggling nuclear weapons into their respective countries. A Soviet agent is sent to the UK to stage a nuclear accident that could be blamed on the Americans and set off a chain reaction of events to unbalance this stand-off.

The Fourth Protocol is based on a novel written by Frederick Forsyth. I have never read it but have read others by this author. His style focuses on the intricate detail of the spy/politics of his thrillers, while his characters contrastingly always seem to be really cardboard, with very little recognisably human about them. With this in mind it's not too surprising that The Day of the Jackal was his most successful book, seeing as the very blankness of the central character was an actual important plot point. But usually this weakness in characterisation is more noticeable. The Fourth Protocol is a quite typical Forsyth spy thriller, in that it has a fairly detailed plot and paper thin characters. Michael Caine phones it in as a Harry Palmer type spy who doesn't play by the rules. It's a quite weak and clichéd character and to be honest Caine doesn't bring much to the table with this one. Pierce Brosnan, on the other hand, is pretty good as the cold Soviet killer. Like in Day of the Jackal, it's this villain who is the more interesting when set alongside the dull heroes, meaning that its actually the bad guy whom we want to succeed, which I'm sure could not have exactly been the original intention. Unlike Caine, Brosnan is playing against type and certainly makes better work of what he is given and is certainly the best thing about the movie. On the whole, this is a pretty standard spy film, with nothing very distinctive about it. Despite its generic nature, it is quite enjoyable though.

After more than 30 years, it's still an exciting thriller and a well-made film. I wish there were more movies like this. It is undoubtedly an example to follow for those who want to dedicate themselves to making films of this type.

I was quite surprised to see that this movie got a 5.9 rating. I think that it's a lot better than that. Brosnan is good, the plot is sufficiently tricky to be interesting, and Caine delivers the kind of reliable, excellent performance that you can count on (at least when the movie isn't total junk -- he only seems to phone it in when the movie is entirely hopeless). The ending is a little abrupt, but I can't find any fault with it other than that. (The cast is uniformly strong, too.) Maybe people underrate the movie because the movie is low-budget. It looks like a British TV-movie, and maybe it was, but I find it easy to get past the production values when the acting is good.

I've seen it twice, and it holds up to a second viewing.