The Fourth War

The premise of this film is totally off the wall. Yet it's good entertainment as two hardened soldiers fight their own personal war across the iron curtain. Almost too bad that the cold war is over because they don't make movies like this anymore. Roy Scheider and Jurgen Prochnow give the capable performances one would expect of them but the outstanding performer is Harry Dean Stockton as the US general.He was top notch.

It's really a silly idea for a movie. But what the heck. I enjoyed it!

Yes, stunning, as in stunningly silly. The only two saving graces were Tim Reid and Harry Dean Stanton. Even Roy Scheider couldn't save this. It's hard to believe John Frankenheimer was responsible for this mess.

Other than that it was great!

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.

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.

I frankly expected more from a Frakenheimer movie. Roy Scheider as Colonel Jack Knowles is okay as the hothead military iconoclast who's not been the same since the war in Vietnam. He is sent to the German-Czech border and wages a personal vendetta against the short-fused Russian colonel Valachev, played quite menacingly by Jurgen Prochnow. The end of detente and the last Cold War battle? Well, Scheider throws a snowball at Prochnow and the fourth war starts. basically that's how. The premise is good but we are treated to a long and meandering tit-for-tat between two Army colonels that borders on the childish and wanton. While occasionally funny, this is not an intelligent movie. You'd be better off watching Toy Soldiers if you want a more gripping story.