Le quatrième protocole

Forget Brosnan's performance in the Bond movies or the recent excellent Tailor of Panama. His cold, calculative KGB agent in The Fourth Protocol should have told us what a wonderful actor he is. Made in 1987, the film is closer to its older brother (The Days of Jackal, also by Frederick Forsyth) than the spy films starring Michael Caine, as I originally thought it would be. The pace is slow, but thoughtful. Like Jackal, we get to see Brosnan making preparation to bring in the bomb and piecing it together. We also get to see Caine, 'the rebel' of M16 tracking him down. Great show!

Usually we get treated to one type of spy movie these days. This type is made up of good looking young agents with all sorts of high tech weapons and gear. There are beautiful women who are just lining up to sleep with the good guy. The Fourth Protocol is not one of these movies and thank goodness! It is one of the most realistic cold war spy movies out there. Despite it's age(1987) it is relevant to today's world. There is nuclear terrorism and real looking spies. Michael Cain plays a British agent and is too busy looking for Russian spies to be sexing up fine Russian female agents. In fact he has a family. He is excellent as the seasoned agent who uses his mind and not gadgets to track down the Russian spy played by Pierce Brosnan. For those of you who saw Brosnan in Tailor of Panama and found it refreshing to see him play a creep secret agent will be in for a real treat in The Fourth Protocol. Brosnan plays Petrofsky, a young hot shot KGB agent who tries to slice and dice his way to the top. I mean Petrofsky is a flat out cold blooded killer. He makes the guy in Tailor of Panama look like a saint. He has a conscience but he doesn't let it get in the way of his mission to explode a nuclear weapon on a US Air Force base in Great Britain in order to make it look like the US had a nuclear accident. Petrofsky was the right man for the job he would blow up two or three thousand people just like that. If he wasn't a KGB agent, he could surely find work as a serial killer.

The story moves along quickly and sometimes a bit too quickly. However it doesn't detract from the movie. The movie looks more like a cop movie in the way the investigation unfolds. When they finally find out what's going on there is a good action sequence that doesn't go over the top. It just serves the purpose in this movie. Other things I liked was the scene where they constructed the bomb.

I would recommend this one to anyone who likes spy movies and are tired of the James Bond rigmarole.

Rayvyn

I wouldn't consider this movie a "classic" or even particularly "great", but for some reason I really enjoy watching this film. I haven't read the book, however I used to own "The Fourth Protocol" computer game for the Commodore 64, and was vaguely familiar with the basic storyline.

I can't pinpoint what exactly it is I like about this movie, but I did enjoy seeing Michael Caine as a British agent tracking down the nuclear bomb. I could probably watch a whole series of films based around his character. I also liked some of the other characters and I think it had a good cast of actors. The workings of government agents was very compelling to watch, but it was good to see that the film wasn't overwhelmed by ridiculous gadgets and stuck to the drama involved.

The 80's technology in the film also had an element of nostalgia about it. This film reminds me of a bygone age of the BBC Micro and Ford transit vans. In fact, I love watching the film just to see the various parts of England as well.

I liked the fact that its a rather 'quiet' movie, but I do think it needed to be re-edited. Some parts of the film just skimmed through major plot developments without giving them time to breath, and other times the film would show a character hopping from various locations in England without giving a sense of the travelling in between. Watching this film would give the impression that England is only about 10 miles wide! Some elements of the film really needed to be fleshed out a bit more.

This isn't the sort of movie I would go to a cinema to see, its more of a "Friday night in" movie that I would watch on TV. I would only recommend it to someone if they were die-hard fans of this genre.

some comments on this film have stated that there are unnecessary killings of agents or witnesses, this is done to show the politics of the film and how there must be no trace back to those who planned the operation, whilst also portraying that petrofsky is a lethal killer, and as Caine says in the film "the best". A great story, and very believable, spies that remain hidden from each other and no excruciating scene where the bad guy reveals his plot to the good guy. Would have been interesting to see what would have happened if the operation had turned out differently, or the ending for that matter!

Of course one of the best things about this film is the acting as previously stated by other people. Caine brings his character to life and is very believable in the role of John Preston, the agent who cares, and will "bend" the rules to make sure things get down. Brosnan is similarly good, his character will stop at nothing to complete his mission, he is a stone cold killer and this is portrayed well, he doesn't let anything get in the way of the mission.

All in all a very good little film, much better than some of the tripe we get from Hollywood and with one of the finest British casts i've seen in some time.

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.