Metacritic reviews

An engrossing and thoroughly enjoyable adaptation of the bestselling spy thriller by Frederick Forsyth.

An absorbing, intelligent and suspense-filled film... It's streamlined and rich at the same time -- like the best of the James Bond films, but serious.

The Fourth Protocol is first-rate because it not only is a thriller, but it also pays attention to its characters and shows how their actions grow out of their personalities. Like Michael Caine's other recent British spy film, "The Whistle Blower," it is effective not simply because it's a thriller but also because for long stretches it simply is a very absorbing drama.

The Fourth Protocol is full of seemingly inside information about the techniques of spies. And although the film rarely develops as much sustained tension as the adaptation of Forsyth's "The Day of the Jackal," The Fourth Protocol does have Caine as an anchor of credibility as well as solid performances as Russian agents by Joanna Cassidy and Brosnan, who looks here like he would have made a fine James Bond. [28 Aug 1987, p.A]

The Fourth Protocol is a decidedly contempo thriller, a tale of vying masterspies and a chase to head off a nuclear disaster. Its edge is a fine aura of realism.

A coolly efficient thriller with an octopus of a plot.

What is missing is any real tension or psychological detail that might lend plausibility to all the hocus-pocus about East-West political and military intrigue.

A competent, if unremarkable, espionage thriller that is enjoyable while it lasts and forgotten moments after the credits roll.

The Fourth Protocol was a great in-flight read, and it will probably be a great in-flight movie, too-though in a theater it looks a little pale and overextended. [28 Aug 1987, p.FC]

As The Fourth Protocol begins at the outside and curls its way into the center of its wildly complex plot, it becomes almost a "Saturday Night Live" spy spoof. We're saturated with detail: Where will the nested Russian folk-art dolls, the visiting violinist's patent-leather shoes and the American Air Force officer's randy wife fit into the Greater Scheme of Things? Gradually, as our eyes glaze over, it becomes very hard to care--and even harder to suppress a giggle.