In 1980s it wasn’t that uncommon for bestselling novels to be adapted into video games before being adapted to big screen. Most notable examples happened to be Cold War thrillers like Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October. Another example was The Fourth Protocol, 1984 novel by Frederick Forsythe, British journalist who became famous for mixing fiction with real life or persons in his plots. In 1985 the novel was adapted into adventure video game released for ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC. The author of this review has spent hours playing the game, which had unusual amount of depth, technical innovation and variety of gameplay styles for its age. In 1987 the novel was adapted into eponymous film directed by John Mackenzie.
The title refers to fictional secret part of real life Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which was signed in 1968 by existing nuclear powers, including United Kingdom and USSR. The protocol prohibits signatories from covertly delivering, assembling and detonating nuclear bombs on their adversaries’ soil. And that is exactly what General Govershin (played by Alan North), hardline chief of Soviet KGB wants to do. He has recruited top operative Valeri Petrofsky (played by Pierce Brosnan) and sends him to East Anglia where he would, under the false name of “James Ross” rent an apartment nearby USAF base which is, due to having nuclear-armed bombers in it, favourite target of British anti-nuclear demonstrators. His task is to receive the different parts for the small tactical nuclear bomb from different couriers, have it assembled and detonate it. The idea is to have explosion blamed on Americans, which would force British government to oust USAF and ultimately end NATO. In the meantime, John Preston (played by Michael Caine), top operative of MI5, British counter-intelligence service, draws ire of his boss Brian Harcourt-Smith (played by Julian Glover) and gets demoted to seemingly unimportant duty of monitoring potential enemy agents at British ports and airports. There he notices strange deliveries of various items by Soviet agents and begins to conclude that someone wants to build and detonate nuclear device.
Forsyth, who had some notable film adaptation of his work in the past, took more active role in case of The Fourth Protocol. He wrote the script and made sure that his good friend Michael Caine got cast in role of John Preston. Direction was given to John Mackenzie, Scottish director best known for his iconic gangster film The Long Good Friday and who also worked with Caine in The Honorary Consul. Mackenzie does solid job, for the most part maintaining proper balance between action and exposition while making sure that the pacing is acceptable. As a result, The Fourth Protocol is never too boring despite almost two hours of running time. Cast is very good, starting with Caine who had built much of his career playing intelligence agents like Harry Palmer. Pierce Brosnan in one of his first major roles, however, relies more on his looks which allows his character, just like the chief antagonist of The Day of the Jackal, previous adaptation of Forsyth’s work, to seduce members of both sexes. Somewhat unusual detail in this film is that the Russian characters are played by Irish or American actors who always use their native accents. Among those is Joanna Cassidy who plays Soviet female weapons expert, and whose fate in the film brings this film close to exploitation territory.
Biggest problem of the film is the script. Forsyth is good novelist, but not a good screenwriter. While adapting the novel (which used the same premise as Octopussy, one of the sillier James Bond films made few years earlier) he tried to simplify the plot by discarding references to UK internal politics, but in the process the script needlessly complicated things. (In)famous British defector Kim Philby appears in the film (played by Michael Bilton) only to be inexplicably killed off at the beginning (despite real Philby being alive in USSR during the time of production). There are some long passages that don’t go anywhere in terms of plot, like strange friendship between “Ross” and neighbouring USAF officer (played by Matt Frewer) and suggested romance with his wife (played by Betsy Brantley). Some scenes, on the other hand, seem introduced simply because Forsyth wasn’t sure whether Preston would be accepted as proper hero; so we have segments with Preston as dedicated father to his young son, as well as scene where he handless racist skinheads that harassed young black woman in underground railway. The most disappointing is the somewhat confusing finale which suggests that British and Soviet intelligence chiefs (played by Ian Richardson and Ray McAnally) can work together to maintain the protocol and prevent Cold War from getting out of hand. This finale is even more disappointing in light of current events that suggest that this world could use at least some of such kind of sanity.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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