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Summary: Don't rent THIS verision
Comment: While this is a reasonably enjoyable bit of spy vs. spy escapism, the quality of this rental download is pathetic. I rented this film to watch on my laptop during a recent airline trip and frankly, I was a bit shocked. It's quite obviously been transferred from a twenty year old edited for TV analog video tape complete with choppy breaks for commercials and awful audio and video quality.
Amazon should really be embarrassed to offer (let alone charge money for) this version. This is certainly not what customers expect when they rent or purchase an Unbox Video. (Thankfully, it's the exception and not the rule)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Absorbing thriller!
Comment: A Russian pilot is disposed to reaffirm his noble patriotism setting off a nuclear weapon near an American base in U.K. Michael Caine will be the assigned officer in order to foil this brutal incident that would visibly alter the delicate terror' s equilibrium. In sum a pretty good spy thriller, where Pierce Brosnan reaffirmed his own style as a promissory actor, after his successful brief cameo in 1980 with The long good Friday. It's not mere casualty John Mackenzie had been the same director in both films.
Based on the famous novel of Frederick Forsyth (The day of the jackal)
Customer Rating:
Summary: DVD available in Region 2 of suspenseful thriller
Comment: In the 1960s Michael Caine appeared in a series of spy movies as Len Deighton's fictional cold war hero Harry Palmer. Then in 1986 Caine appeared again in much the same mold except in this instance, since it was based on a book by Frederick Forsyth, his character had a different name, even though in image and style he was very much a Palmer clone.
Forsyth has had a number of his works adapted into movies. In the 1970s we had such classics as THE ODESSA FILE and DAY OF THE JACKAL and even Christopher Walken fresh off his Oscar for THE DEER HUNTER appeared in 1980s DOGS OF WAR based on another bestseller. This mid-1980s entry is perhaps a little grittier in tone and more frightening in scope then the other movies mentioned and is ultimately fascinating as much for the picture it paints of the machinations of the intelligence community as for the intrigue played out on screen.
One needs to understand the political context in which this sly political thriller was written to appreciate it.
Today we are consumed with tackling terrorism but back in the 1980s the big threat was the Soviet Union and its nuclear arsenal. Indeed there were regular protests outside the American airbase of Greenham Common when people expressed their displeasure at the presence of cruise missiles.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this movie for today's audience is the appearance of a pre-007 Pierce Brosnan as a Russian spy. Having been forced to decline the role of James Bond in 1986 Brosnan instead appeared in this movie as one of the key villains of the piece - and what a nasty piece of work he is. Cold and emotionaless Brosnan's character obeys his orders without question and one wishes that he had played 007 more like this. In fact the plot of this movie bears more than a passing resemblance to the plot of the earlier 007 movie OCTOPUSSY though it is handled in a much more serious and plausible manner here.
As with that 1983 James Bond movie, here the KGB plans to explode a nuclear weapon close to an American airbase with the blame going to the United States. With the KGB smuggling in a weapon piece-by-piece the movie follows the plot of the book quite closely with British intelligence trying to track down the Russian agent after it intercepts materials used in the construction of an atomic weapon.
Playing the part of a Russian scientist assigned to put all the pieces together is the beautiful Joanna Cassidy. Her scenes with Brosnan allow the future 007 star to portray a truly ruthless killer for once.
The pace of the movie may prove to be a little too pedestrian for those who are used to the action thrillers of today. It is a more measured and (dare I say it) more intelligent approach to the thriller genre but it manages to ratchet up the suspense quite effectively and is well worth a look-see.
For DVD collectors with region-free players there is a DVD of this movie available in Region 2 (Europe) that also features a rather interesting making-of-featurette.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Movie But no DVD
Comment: I saw this movie when it first came out. Loved it. Why Why Why no one has put this to DVD i'll never know? I'll have to keep waiting I guess.
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Summary: Why do British actors make the best movie spies?
Comment: 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.
