FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

george-purdy The film differs from the book in that the crazy right wing politics is left out. (The labour party is not filled with communists.)Both the book and the film postulate goings on in Moscow Centre, but it just doesn't work that way. Readers of Le Carre's spy novels would tell you for example, that "Moscow Centre prides itself in always getting its agents back (alive.)" There is a James Bond film, Octopussy, with a similar story, trying to nuke a circus near a Nato airbase in Germany, rather than Britain, but that detail was probably inspired by this story as much as the books of Ian Fleming, who worked for Naval Intelligence and would have known better. The Americans were terrified of the prospect that a nuke might explode accidentally anywhere in Europe, because the gamma rays would be detected by US satellites, and Nato Rapid Deployment Bombers would immediately head for Russia, as a reflex action--this could not be stopped. The concern then was what the Russians would do when the RDBs showed up on their radar and there were no Nato exercises scheduled for that day. They hoped that cool heads would prevail, and that the Russians would wait to see if the bombers halted at their fail safe points. For reasons like this, it seems unlikely that even a rogue Russian General would arrange for such a nuclear incident.There's now an official history of MI6, by the way, "The Secret History of MI-6: 1909-1949," and a rogue British agent is detailed there, but he was only a little crazy.

Rodrigo Amaro A good film, indeed, but not so much of an exciting experience to watch it and those who know Frederick Forsyth's works as novelist are highly familiar on how gripping and thrilling his characters and situations are. But the thing that disappointed me the most is that Forsyth wrote the film script and what I saw wasn't so interesting to make me feel great about it.Well, the story isn't news, again we have a plot where Soviets want to destroy the Capitalist/American system, this time the target is an American base in England. Now, the British intelligence has to find the terrorist before something bad happens. The villain, however, is one man and one man only, a deadly KGB spy (Pierce Brosnan) who has the mission of exploding an atomic bomb on a American military base. The man on his track is the charming agent John Preston (Michael Caine, very good), who has to fight the bureaucracy of his boss (Julian Glover) to finally solve this situation.The problem I had with the film is the awfully number of characters and tiny little situations where I couldn't understand clearly what was happening, some of the characters motivations as well wasn't good presented. The lack of some great action sequences also bothered me a little, but the ones developed were very interesting (the scene where Michael Caine jumps out of the car, then runs to a moving train; and Barry's crazy chase with the van almost hitting the people). The cat and mouse game of "The Day of the Jackal" is inexistent here except for the final moments (here's a writer making a copy of himself. The whole situation is so similar that is beyond belief). The appeal of "The Fourth Protocol" lies in the incredible cast assembled that not only includes Brosnan and Caine but also Ned Beatty, Ray McAnally, Joanna Cassidy (quite effective as Brosnan partner), Michael Gough and others.It's not a case of great performances but all of them have decent parts to play with. Surprisingly strange is the fact of a great director like John Mackenzie, specialist in creating thrilling moments in films like "Deadly Voyage" and "Infiltrator" (both TV movies) seemed a little lost with this script since it's hard to feel some thrill with everything presented (except when Pierce is killing his victims, he's a real stone cold kind of a guy). If the drama is quite hard to follow, the suspense only works for limited moments. But seeing the general picture as a whole you still can have a decent movie, with some good surprises. To me, one random moment that marked me in this film is when Michael Caine beats two racist punks on the subway, that was really awesome. I don't know why it's really in the film but it's a great moment to be seen. It could've been special but it also could've been way worst, just one step in false and this could be a reunion of wasted talents. Gladly, this didn't happened. Fans of Cold War flicks will enjoy it but be prepared for lots of confusing things. 6/10

Robert J. Maxwell Frederick Forsythe is always a reliable and successful writer, and many of his spy thriller novels have been made into movies. I would guess that Forsythe provided the inspiration for Tom Clancy and the people who wrote this script. There's quite a bit of technical stuff involved in this story of a KGB spy who is sent to England to detonate a nuclear device at the USAF base at Baywaters, England, the base I always thought was at Bayswater. No matter.The KGB man is Pearse Brosnan and the British counter-terrorism agent who tracks him is Michael Caine, redoing his Palmer number from "The Ipcress File," only with more raucous animation.It's pretty involving. After all, the stakes are high. The explosion will devastate everything within a two-mile radius and kill upwards of 5,000 people.And there are exciting action scenes, especially a van in pursuit of a motorcycle and the inevitable final shoot out, with the wounded Brosnan's fingertip straining to reach the button that will detonate the fiendish device.There are a couple of types of villains in movies like this. One is the suave and debonair type -- George Sanders or James Mason, maybe, in "North by Northwest." Then there's the jocular, almost likable type of killer, always a smile and a wisecrack, like John Travolta in "Broken Arrow" or Jack Nicholson as The Joker. Finally, there's the type that Brosnan fits into in this film -- determined, distant, touched by passions perhaps but only by selfish ones, and absolutely determined. It might be the assassin in "The Day of the Jackal" or Arnold in "The Terminator." Brosnan is actually quite good. He has a pretty face and is capable of an icy demeanor, the kind that brushes away the caressing hand of a pretty neighbor because she doesn't fit into his plans. And there has never been a movie that was torpedoed by the presence of Michal Caine. Caine also gets a bonus point for doing a fine drunk. He's hilarious. He wobbles when he walks and his voice gets high and cracks.I've seen this twice. The first time made more of an impression. The second time, oddly, I found myself getting confused about some of the intricacies of the plot. But it was still enjoyable.

ib011f9545i It is a while since I this film but the title is explained at the start of the film,a voice over and text on the screen says something about a treaty signed by the major powers during the cold war and mentions a secret "fourth protocol" that forbids the planting of small scale nuclear weapons in each others countries. Iiked this film but at the time (1987) many people said that Forysth was a right wing nut,he is but we know know that the USSR had all sorts of crazy ideas about attacking the west because they thought that the west was going to attack them first.People who liked this fiom should also look out for THE WHILSTLEBLOWER ,another 1980s British spy movie with Michael Caine.