Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #83818 in DVD
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, PAL
• Original language: English, Portuguese, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English, Portuguese, Spanish
• Running time: 119 minutes

Amazon.com
Frederick Forsyth wrote the novel and screenplay for this story about a plot to stage an enormous nuclear accident in England, a catastrophe so large that its source can never be identified but will lead to assumptions that America is behind it. Michael Caine plays an aging intelligence agent who picks up clues that the ingredients for such an apocalypse are being smuggled piece-by-piece into the U.K.--but he cannot seem to get his superiors to care. Caine is outstanding in a role that seems tailor-made for him, and Pierce Brosnan is very good as the Russian agent working undercover in England to effect the planned tragedy. The film perfectly captures a spreading suspicion and resentment toward superpower adventurism, even though such sentiments are, in fact, being exploited by the bad guys. Caine, as always, suggests a man walking a narrow line through a gauntlet of moral compromises. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

The greatest spy movie of all time
This is the greatest spy thriller ever produced. Pierce Brosnan is the quintessential cold-blooded, mission-bound, Cold War Soviet spy, and Michael Caine is superb as an exasperated, mid-level British intelligence agent, on a fast-track to burnout. There were some good supporting performances, but Brosnan and Caine carried the show; they were at the top of their game in this nailbiter. Had Brosnan not been under contract with the Remington Steele show at the time (before 007 went p.c.), and the Bond franchise gotten its wish, he would have been the greatest Bond, too - you can see it so clearly in this show. Frederick Forsythe wrote The Fourth Protocol, and it was excellent, and the movie followed it faithfully. This same textual fidelity served the industry and fans well with another of Forsythe's works, The Day of the Jackal (the original, not the remake with Bruce Willis and Richard Gere, which was trash). If you like well-conceived, well-written, and well-acted spy movies, this is it. Everything else is make-believe.

Why do British actors make the best movie spies?
After watching THE FOURTH PROTOCOL, I'm left wondering why British actors seem to make the most accomplished spies in releases for the Silver Screen, both big and small. In my mind, the top trio is Michael Caine (as Harry Palmer), Sean Connery (as "007"), and Alec Guinness (as George Smiley). Perhaps it's because, in real life, the UK's international spy agency, the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), has so much more traditional panache than the Yanks' CIA. In MI6, martinis are no doubt "shaken, not stirred". It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the drink of choice in the Central Intelligence Agency is simply light beer.

Here, Michael Caine plays John Preston, a domestic Security Service (MI5) agent on the wrong side of his boss. After being banished to Ports and Harbours, Preston stumbles across evidence that the Soviets are smuggling an atomic bomb into the UK. And indeed they are, as part of a renegade plot by KGB Director Govershin (Alan North) to re-heat the Cold War during the days of détente in the late 1980s. Govershin's infiltrates his superagent, Valeri Petrofsky (Pierce Brosnan), who's assumed the English identity of James Ross, to co-ordinate assembly of the explosive device next to a U.S. air base that stores nuclear bombs. Detonation of the Red nuke will thus be blamed on American carelessness, causing stress on the Anglo-American alliance.

More than a decade after the collapse of the U.S.S.R, the plot of THE FOURTH PROTOCOL, which is above average in entertainment value, approaches being quaint, though the danger of a "suitcase nuke" remains real enough in today's world of pan-national terrorism. The real joy of the film is watching Caine's portrayal of the cheekily insubordinate Preston. (Cheekiness is what defines Caine's acting style and makes him so consistently engaging.)

Brosnan's Petrofsky/Ross is baby-faced and not much beyond just sullen. Pierce has yet to acquire the patina of age that makes him one of the better, though never the best, James Bonds. (Brosnan, sure and begorry, was born in the Republic of Ireland, and is decidedly not British. Perhaps his best spy role - and it was truly excellent - was as the Bond-gone-to-seed secret agent in THE TAILOR OF PANEMA.)

Also eminently watchable is Ian Richardson as the MI6 wallah who has more use for Preston than the latter's boss. (Richardson, if you recall, played the Soviet's mole in MI6 in the refreshingly intelligent TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER SPY, in which Alec Guinness debuted as superspy George Smiley, my most favorite of that actor's screen roles.) I'm always mesmerized by Richardson as his character of the moment swings from smooth charm to understated menace.

Michael Caine's ability to play a believable spook has evolved over a continuum from such of his early films as FUNERAL IN BERLIN and THE IPCRESS FILE to the relatively recent THE QUIET AMERICAN. Whereas Sean Connery has abandoned the genre, and the late great Alec Guinness limited his participation to TTSS and SMILEY'S PEOPLE, Caine continues to venture into the espionage shadow world and THE FOURTH PROTOCOL is a rewarding mission impossible from the past.

A very good action-thriller
This is a really good suspense-thriller (based on the Frederick Forsythe nove) which involves a ruthless Russian agent (Pierce Brosnan) who is sent on a mission by a KGB operative to smuggle in and detonate an atomic bomb at the British NATO air-base in hopes that the British will kick out the American bomber-force and thus disrupt NATO. Michael Caine replays his Ipcress File character and plays a smart British operative who stops Brosnan. I enjoyed this movie because it has a plot that makes sense, and it is well-acted and well-directed. If you are fans of Pierce Brosnan, you would enjoy this movie because Brosnan plays a ruthless Russian agent who does not hesitate to use his "license to kill." If you are fans of Michael Caine, you would definitely like this one. The only thing I did not like about the movie was its inexplicable and abrupt ending. Other than that, I felt that it was a suspenseful movie which built up to a good climax. This is one of the better pre-Bond Brosnan movies. Incidentally, Roger Ebert gave this movie three and a half stars.