El cuarto protocolo

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.

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

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.

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.